Chrome OS Quick Settings panel now displays nine options instead of six to reduce paging

I recently noticed that the quick settings menu on my Chromebooks running Chrome OS 97 Stable has appeared taller and less wide. Initially, I thought this was just some odd style change to add a more mature or tightened-up look to the UI, but then I realized something.

If you look at the two images below side-by-side, you’ll notice that the quick settings panel that many of you have or recently had on your laptops only housed six options or tiles – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, Screen capture, Night Light, and Dark theme.

In order to see more options such as keyboard layouts, Accessibility options, and more, you’d have to scroll your mouse wheel, click the next pagination bubble just above the volume section, or swipe from right to left to see a new set of options slide in horizontally.

However, with what I believe was the Notifications Revamp update, the quick settings panel now houses up to nine options tiles on the first or primary page, reducing the need for most users operating their Chromebooks without additional toggles enabled to jump between pages!

It’s funny to me that I hadn’t realized this before, but seeing as how one of my accounts had it enabled while the other did not just today, I’m guessing this is a relatively new change and a welcome one at that. As a reminder, your notifications still appear above the quick settings panel, so at this time, you have less room than you used to in order to see them.

While this flies directly in the face of accessibility to notifications on Chrome OS – even more than it used to – I believe this change may, in fact, be more prep work for the potential Android 12L expanded, horizontal, two-column quick settings and notifications panel that I discussed recently.

I’ll point this out once again – I believe that Google may be preparing Chromebooks to take on Android 12L’s new notification shade as seen above. The additional first-page options tiles may be making way for replacement colorful tiles as I displayed in my Material You mock-up last year.

Additionally, the design may be getting taller and thinner to accommodate for a shift to the left while notifications stay to the right, creating said two-column design. I, for one, would personally welcome this change, even though I have no evidence at this time to push the idea that it’s coming aside from the fact that Android 12L has been officially announced as coming to Chromebooks.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts – do you like the new nine option setup, or does it frustrate you that your notifications are now more awkward to navigate? Would you be interested in a two-column design for quick settings and notifications, or do you feel that would add more clutter to the screen? Let me know in the comments!