The browser introduces support for picture-in-picture mode in custom tabs
Abstract
- Google’s custom tabs can now be displayed in picture-in-picture mode, allowing tabs to remain active in the background.
- A new chevron icon in custom tabs collapses them into a floating pane, complete with resize and position options.
- Chrome’s picture-in-picture mode has been in testing since last year, and the wider rollout is starting now.
Google’s Custom Tabs are an ingenious way to handle in-app links on Android, giving you access to cookies and settings on websites without kicking you straight into Chrome. The concept of custom cards has remained largely unchanged over the past few years, with only minor improvements. The latest tweak is more fundamental though. Using Android’s picture-in-picture mode, custom tabs can now remain active in the background.
To achieve this, Google added a new chevron icon next to the x button in the upper left corner, available in all apps that use custom tabs. When you press the new button, the custom tab collapses into a small floating pane with the website’s icon, title, and domain visible. You can freely move the floating panel around the screen and even resize it. You can close the tab by dragging it down to the bottom of the screen. In other words, floating custom tabs behave exactly like the mini video players used by many video streaming apps, which makes sense given that they both use the same underlying Android feature.
The new picture-in-picture mode lets you switch between the app you opened the custom tab in and the tab itself. On social media, this could allow you to post about a link you’re looking at while also being able to quickly reference it. Of course, it was always possible to do something similar by pressing the overflow button on the custom card and selecting it Open in Chrome browser shortcut, which seamlessly moves across websites into a regular Chrome tab. Still, being able to do it with a single tap and without having to open another browser tab is definitely an improvement.
Chrome has been working on picture-in-picture mode for a while now
The company began testing floating custom cards late last year
Google first started testing picture-in-picture with Chrome Canary 121 late last year. With Chrome 122, the company has now started expanding it. Given the nature of Google’s slow rollout of features, it may take a while for it to reach your phone if you don’t already have it. You can force it to appear by turning it on chrome://flags/#cct-minified tick and restart the browser.