Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL; DR
- Google Messages offered an integrated picture-in-picture YouTube viewer until mid-2024.
- Earlier this year we discovered signs that Google was working to restore this functionality.
- The PiP YouTube player is now appearing for some Messages beta testers.
When we see Google working on a new feature for one of its apps, it’s often a mystery how long we’ll have to wait before it’s ready to go live – assuming it does at all. That could be a matter of days, weeks, months or longer. Today we have some good news about a long-overdue upgrade that finally looks like it’s almost ready for prime time as it starts reaching beta testers.
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We’re talking specifically about Google Messages and its support for a handy pop-out YouTube player. It used to be that when a friend texted you the link to a YouTube clip, you could view it directly in Messages through a picture-in-picture window, making it easy to follow the conversations as you watched. But then Google finally retired that functionality in August 2024.
However, last March we started to get the feeling that Google might be bringing it back, as one of our APK teardowns provided evidence that the YouTube PiP code was returning. And now, eight months later, it’s finally coming out to beta testers, like Stephen shares on X.
Sure enough, while the last time we looked we were able to display the running PiP UI, it wasn’t functional at the time. But if you try again now, it is fully operational:
The cool thing about this is that it’s all baked right into Messages. Technically, you don’t have to install YouTube separately. So far we haven’t been able to get the PiP window to stay on when switching apps, but that could simply be a result of our initial tests being on an account without access to YouTube Premium.
While the PiP interface itself is quite simple, essentially only allowing you to pause and resume playback, tapping to go full screen unlocks a much more useful user interface, including your navigation bar and playback options.
We’ve confirmed that not all YouTube beta accounts have access to the PiP player yet, so testing appears to be quite limited at the moment. That said, the fact that we’re hearing about it at all is major progress, and this could finally gain the momentum to be ready for a public release soon – hopefully sooner than another eight months, anyway!
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#Sharing #YouTube #clips #Google #Messages #lot