If you switch tabs on Google Chrome for Android, the tab switcher is displayed in the horizontal or vertical mode based on your phone’s orientation. This might change.

According to a code change request that I found today, Google is getting ready with an experimental flag to make the Android tab switcher always use horizontal mode.

Add flag for enabling horizontal tab switching on Android

This CL adds a flag for making the Android tab switcher always use horizontal mode (currently used in landscape mode) in portrait mode. Later CLs will refine the experience so we can run a public experiment.

The bug associated with this code change is private. However, I could find the flag description from the code:

“Enable horizontal tab switcher”;
const char kHorizontalTabSwitcherAndroidDescription[] =
“Changes the layout of the Android tab switcher so tabs scroll “
“horizontally instead of vertically.”;

This thing is pretty simple. However, I am trying to figure out what the significance of such an experiment is.

Any thoughts?