Google Chrome on iOS appears to be ramping up its offline capabilities by improving its existing Reading List feature. For those unfamiliar, Reading List on Chrome is quote similar to Safari’s, which allows users to save articles to catch up later, and there are hints of further improvements in the pipeline.
Although Chrome users have been able to save articles for later reading, the offline reading experience requires users to be online to access saved pages or jump through hoops to download the page for offline viewing, and that’s what may get fixed in upcoming updates.
According to a Chromium Gerrit CL (change list), accessed independently by The Mac Observer, there’s a change list that states, “[iOS] Launch offline loader for Reading List offline page. This CL launches the refactoring to use the new API to load the offline version of the reading list,” which hints that offline reading could be smoother and improved soon.
Once the update rolls out, users will no longer rely solely on an active internet connection to access their previously saved articles. Instead, they can enjoy what they saved in the reading list offline, even in instances when there’s no internet connection.
Right now, there’s no clear timeline on when Google might push this update to Chrome on iOS, or whether this will be exclusive to iPhones or if iPads will also have a chunk of the pie. That said, you can count on the improvements coming to Chrome’s Reading List on iOS in coming updates.
In addition, Google Chrome has been on a roll recently. Alongside the improvements to its Reading List feature, there are more changes in the pipeline, including a Quick Delete feature coming soon on iPhones, and the browser masking media controls in Incognito Mode on macOS.