Google now appears to be testing a picture-in-picture (PiP) button for Chrome, located directly in the media controls. Spotted in the Canary Channel and version of the browser, the feature would effectively allow media playback to be pushed to a PiP window directly. That’s as opposed to relying on the user minimizing or moving away from a given page where media is playing.
For clarity, the button has appeared for many users in the media controls card typically found behind a click on the associated icon next to the URL Omnibox.
The button features an icon that’s identical to the YouTube icon for moving playback to a “miniplayer” window. That’s the button that’s shaped like a square within a larger square. When clicked, that moves the window to the bottom right-hand side of the UI. The result is that the rest of the site then becomes accessible for searches and other activity, while media playback continues.
How is the new PiP button really different and what does this mean for users?
Now, PiP playback is already available for YouTube, specifically, on most platforms in Chrome. The biggest difference is that requires the user to minimize the window or app playing the media directly or by moving to another app. With the button, that will be directly accessible. So users can choose when the PiP mode is initiated without any extra work.
The biggest difference between the abovementioned “miniplayer” and PiP is that the former feature is limited to the YouTube page. So users can’t actually do anything other than browsing YouTube while it’s in use. Otherwise, they won’t see the content — although audio does continue.
The addition of the new PiP control should also not be limited to YouTube. Instead, it should work with just about any media that supports PiP playback. Perhaps more importantly, the user won’t need to be on the page playing back the media to access it.
When Google added its universal media controls for Chrome, one of the biggest benefits was its ease-of-access. That includes the ability to use it from any page in Chrome, whether that was the page playing back media or not. So the new button should be accessible even after the user moves to a different tab. That will allow users to open or close a PiP of their media playback on-demand from effectively anywhere in Chrome.
When is this coming to Chrome everywhere?
As of this writing, the new icon and feature are found only in Google’s Canary variant of the Chrome browser. It also appears to be only featured on desktop platforms. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will stay that way. It’s also not immediately clear whether the PiP mode button is available in Chrome OS’s Canary Channel. If so, it will likely appear in the notifications-based media playback controls found on that platform in recent versions.
But this is one experimental feature that doesn’t require any additional settings or experimental flags to be turned on. That means that users only need to download the experimental version of Chrome to use it. It also indicates this could be ready as early as within the next couple of versions of Stable Channel Chrome for those who prefer to wait.