A new and interesting flag has shown up in the Chrome OS Canary channel. This however is not a Chrome OS only feature. According to the flag description, Picture in picture is coming to Chrome on  Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS.

Picture in Picture

Picture in picture is a feature that was introduced in TV sets, allowing users to watch more than one program at a time, in small windows, with sound coming only from the main window. This was introduced in Android recently. From Android O, users can use Picture in picture to use other apps while watching a video on YouTube.

On Chrome, there are a bunch of extensions that let you do this. If this flag makes it into the Stable channel, Chrome users will soon have Picture in picture built-in, without any extensions.

For now however, this looks like a placeholder to me. I enabled the flag, restarted my Chromebook, downloaded a video to test. No luck. I visited YouTube and looked for signs of Picture in picture mode. No luck there too.

This is a new flag, and it might take a while before it actually starts working. For now however, I know what to check when I get an update on my Chromebook (which happens almost daily, because I am on Canary channel).

Stay tuned for more updates.