After years of requests from users, Apple is now introducing support for a picture-in-picture mode that allows you to browse while continuing to watch a video. You can now watch shows from the Apple TV app whilst multitasking around the rest of the operating system. Just like the iPad, Apple TV users will be able to leave the video playing in a thumbnail window whilst they navigate the rest of the operating system. This feature was first introduced in iOS 9 as a multitasking feature for iPad.
From the looks of it, Apple’s picture-in-picture feature won’t allow you to stream video on top of another video. Instead, it will shrink whatever content you are currently watching to a small box housed at the corner of the screen, allowing you to navigate the rest of the operating system without the need to pause or back out of an app. On-screen controls allow you to jump between the video thumbnail and the rest of Apple TV, move the picture box to different corners of the screen or close the content entirely. The appearance on Apple TV marks an expansion of Apple’s picture-in-picture feature, which first appeared in iOS 9 as a multitasking feature for iPad.
In addition to this new functionality, tvOS 13 beta 2 also has a redesigned Home screen along with video previews in the background, multi-user support with this update, and new BBC ‘Under the Sea’ screensavers.
Picture-in-Picture mode will be supported on both Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD.