Neil Hughes
With the release of iOS 9 this week, iPad owners can now shrink video and continue watching and listening while accomplishing other tasks, thanks to Apple's all-new Picture in Picture mode.
Picture in Picture mode is invoked by taking a full-screen video and tapping an icon in the bottom right corner. Doing so shrinks the video to a corner of the iPad's screen, and the content will remain in that general vicinity as the user goes on to do other tasks.
PIP videos can be displayed in a range of customizable sizes, increased or decreased with pinching gestures. The video can be dragged to all four corners of the screen.
he video itself will automatically move to get out of the way of essential items — Â for example, when navigating to the home screen, a video pinned to the bottom of the iPad display will move upward slightly to accommodate for the iOS app dock.
In addition to being viewed in all four corners, Picture in Picture can also be dragged off the screen to make room to see more of the display. By simply dragging the video window off to the side, a sliver of the video will remain viewable, allowing it to be dragged back into view whenever a user chooses. Apple includes a semi-transparent arrow icon on the sliver of the video, indicating to the user that the content can be dragged back onto the main display.
Tapping the PIP window once will bring up three oversized, easy-to-press buttons allowing the user to return the video to its original location, play or pause the clip, or close it completely.
Picture in Picture works in any video viewable within Safari, as well as Apple's own native Videos app. Any third-party application using the standard iOS playback controls can do Picture in Picture. The app must support Apple's tools for background playback in iOS.
However, applications using proprietary video players do not support PIP capabilities. That includes popular video playing apps such as YouTube and Netflix.
If a user plays other media while Picture in Picture is enabled, such as a song or another video, the PIP video will automatically pause. Replaying the PIP video will pause the other media accordingly as well.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
78 Comments
The PIP window can be viewed at any size. Craig Federighi demonstrated this.
The PIP window can be viewed at any size. Craig Federighi demonstrated this.
In the first beta of iOS 9, the video can be displayed in three pre-set sizes. You cannot customize the video to any size beyond these three.
That means no YouTube, it doesn't support background playback.
And Googs is unlikely to support it. They can't have you hiding ads off screen.
PIP with an iPad pro (or plus) would be interesting. Regular iPad is still a bit small for multitasking
[quote name="nhughes" url="/t/186700/inside-ios-9-apples-ipad-only-picture-in-picture-mode-lets-you-keep-watching-video-with-any-task#post_2734599"] In the first beta of iOS 9, the video can be displayed in three pre-set sizes. You cannot customize the video to any size beyond these three. [/quote] Hmm... Then that is obviously different than what was shown in the demo.