That's the sole advantage, but i give up 30 pixels of real estate, it looks downright tacky, it's now inconsistent with other iOS devices, and I have to rely on overly long and poorly titled web page names rather than an instantly recognizable snapshot to identity the content in the tabs. And seeing 9 snapshots at once is far easier to mentally process and choose from than reading 9 text labels (human brains are wired for imagery - look it up). The tab bar doesn't even hide when I have a single tab open; totally amateur.
Apple took mobile surfing to the next phase of sleekness and usability with the paged approach to tabbed browsing; this change is a step backwards.