How to Use Picture-in-Picture Mode on Android Phone
Picture-in-Picture support arrived on Android phones back in 2017, with the release of Android 8 (also known as Android Oreo). This means you can play videos while you’re doing something else on your phone: checking email, refreshing your home screen, browsing the web, or whatever.
This feature should be as simple and straightforward as possible and should work smoothly, but you need to know a few things about which apps support this mode, how to turn picture-in-picture on or off, and that you can change the appearance of the floating window.
How to enable picture-in-picture
The first thing to consider when it comes to picture-in-picture is that it won’t work with every video app: developers need to add the necessary support. If it is not enabled, then when you exit an application in which a video is playing, the application will simply close and the video will stop playing.
There is no definitive list of apps that do or don’t support picture-in-picture – all you can do is test the apps you use and see what happens. For example, Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video and YouTube are apps that offer picture-in-picture support on Android, while BBC iPlayer is one of the apps that doesn’t. If you are using an application that does not have this mode, you can contact the developer and request it.
In some cases, there is a workaround for the lack of picture-in-picture support: downloading videos in the Chrome browser. You can then click the picture-in-picture button (the small rectangle inside the larger one) to open a pop-up window. This works for example with the BBC iPlayer website, although it may not work with all apps.
Regardless of whether the apps you select support picture-in-picture, you can turn the feature on or off on an app-by-app basis from the Android Settings screen. Tap Apps > Access Special Apps > Picture in Picture to view a list of apps and set permissions. If an app you know that supports picture-in-picture doesn’t launch the mode as expected, it may be because the resolution is disabled. this screen.
Switch to picture-in-picture mode
If you’re watching a video in an app, triggering picture-in-picture mode is as simple as switching to another app or to the home screen while the video is playing (which on most modern Android phones means swiping up from the bottom). screen). The video continues to play in a small overlay window.
You can still control video playback: Tap the window to bring up a pause button, which you can tap to pause playback. Click again to resume. You’ll also see buttons to go forward or backward by 10 seconds, and a full-screen button in the middle to go back to the original app.
All of these buttons should be the same in picture-in-picture windows, no matter what application you’re using. You’ll also notice a gear icon (top right) that will take you to one of the picture-in-picture resolution switches mentioned above. You can’t have two picture-in-picture windows open at the same time, but you can overlay a video on top of another, although in this case only one can play at a time.
Tap and drag the window if you want to move it to a different location (though it will always snap to one edge of the screen). Use two fingers and a pinch gesture if you want to change the size of the overlay. If you rotate the screen, the picture-in-picture window will also rotate. To close an overlay, click the X button (top right) in the window or drag it down to the X widget at the bottom of the screen (it will appear when you start moving it).