When Twitch launched their Android app it was a dream come true for those who are avid fans of the platform. Watching livestreams of your favorite games became a more mobile affair and it seems to have only gotten better since the launch. Now, Twitch has just recently put out its latest update which likely brings in some bug fixes and improvements, because app updates always do, but it also adds in a pretty neat little feature which should be delightful for those who like to multitask, or for those who just can’t get enough of their game streams even when doing other things.
In Twitch’s latest app update, you can now watch your livestreams no matter what you’re doing on your Android device. To be more specific, Twitch has introduced a new feature which they call the Pop-Out Player that allows you start a stream, then pop out the video from the app and watch it on other screens. So, for example, you could start watching a stream from a heated multiplayer match of your favorite game, but then say you also want to check your news feeds, you can open up something like Feedly or Twitter, or wherever you get your daily dose of news, and then also watch the Twitch livestream in a smaller panel on top of that screen from the app you’re in. Nifty right?
It’s sort of uncommon to see this sort of thing from any app, but it certainly feels right at home with something like Twitch, and it serves as a great way for Twitch to keep people in the app and engaged with content even if they want or need to do other things on their phone. While keeping engagement up is probably not the only reason for Twitch to bring in this type of feature, it definitely makes sense as a reason why they’d want to implement it and chances are it will end up keeping some people watching a stream now that they can do two things at once, when they otherwise would have had to stay in the Twitch app to watch a stream prior to this update which would have meant not doing whatever else it was they might have to do. The update is now live on the Play Store, so if you have the app installed or if you’re going to be installing it, you can grab it and stream to your heart’s content.
