Chrome OS may let you resize picture-in-picture windows for Android apps

Google announced in May that Chrome OS would get picture-in-picture mode for Android apps with the Android P update. The company has been testing the Android P update for Chromebooks for a few months. Chromebooks never received the Android Oreo update, as Google intends to jump straight from Android Nougat to Android P.

Last month, a comment on the Chromium Code Review showed that Google is testing the Android P update only for Chromebooks with kernel version 3.18 and above. This means that Chromebooks with kernel version 3.14 (such as the 2015 Chromebook Pixel) will probably not get the Android P update, which means they won’t be receiving the picture-in-picture feature for Android apps. The focus for testing the Android P update is for Linux kernel version 4.4 and 4.14, with support for Linux kernel version 3.18 being the cut off point. Chromebooks with kernel version 3.18 won’t get the Android P update until at least Chrome OS 71, which is scheduled for December.

Now, a commit in the Chromium Gerrit indicates that Chrome OS may let users resize picture-in-picture mode for Android apps. The commit is titled: “Allow resizing for PIP windows.” It should be noted that it isn’t merged yet. When it’s merged, users of Chromebooks eligible to receive the Android P update will be able to resize the picture-in-picture windows for Android apps.

Picture-in-picture was one of the major new features of Android Oreo. Picture-in-picture (PIP) mode is a special type of multi-window mode that is mostly used for video playback, as it lets users watch videos in a small window pinned to the corner of a screen while navigating between apps or browsing content on the main screen. App adoption of the new feature was slow at the beginning. This month, picture-in-picture began to work in YouTube for non-Red users in the US.

Chrome OS has also been getting other new features in the past few months, such as app shortcuts. App shortcuts are now available in the developer channel, just like Android. Chrome OS 69 will also include support for Gboard.

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