Picture-in-picture mode is finally coming to Google TV, but there’s a catch

Most smartphone screens aren’t large enough to comfortably display two full apps side by side, which can be a problem when you’re trying to get some work done while watching an educational video or live stream. This is where picture-in-picture (PiP) mode comes into play. Picture-in-picture was introduced in Android 8.0 and allows you to watch a video in a small window that overlays other apps. Although PiP has been part of the Android platform for almost seven years, it is not supported on some versions of Android, especially Google TV. However, that will change with the upcoming Android 14 update for TV.

Google TV, if you’re not aware, is based on Android TV OS, a version of AOSP designed for TVs. Since the Android TV operating system is based on AOSP, it has many of the same features. However, some basic Android features are removed from Android TV, or rather may not be included. Picture-in-picture is one example of an Android feature that does not need to be enabled on Android TV devices. Although several Android TV devices, such as the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro 2019 and the Sony X900H 2020, support PiP, many of the best Android TV boxes do not.

Android TV devices tend to have low amounts of RAM, which is a problem for multitasking features like PiP. As a result, Android TV manufacturers usually just disable PiP in their software builds because it may not work well. While the decision to enable picture-in-picture on Android TV devices is left up to OEMs, they also don’t have the option to enable it on Google TV devices. That’s because, according to Google, PiP support “wasn’t supported at all on Google TV before Android 13.” However, with the upcoming update to Android 14 for TV, Google TV devices will finally support picture-in-picture mode, although there are a few caveats.

The first caveat is that PiP mode may not be available on every Google TV device running Android 14 for TV. The reason is the same reason this feature isn’t widely available on Android TV devices: memory. Google says that PiP is enabled “on select devices that comply [their] hardware compatibility criteria’, although they didn’t specify what that was. Android TV app developers will need to query the package manager flag to determine if PiP support is enabled on a particular device.

The second caveat is that Google doesn’t allow media content to be displayed in a picture-in-picture window, which is a major departure from how the feature is used on mobile devices. This means you won’t be able to, say, keep a YouTube video open while you view another video to play. So what will you be able to do with PiP on Google TV? Here are the four categories of content that Google will approve for picture-in-picture mode on TV:

1. Communication use cases such as video calls or voice calls.
2. Smart home integration, such as connected doorbells or baby monitors.
3. Medical use cases such as fitness tracking or health monitoring.
4. Use cases for tickers such as live sports scores or news and stock exchanges.

Android TV apps must explicitly declare categories that correspond to their intended use of PiP mode. This statement must be added to the applications’ manifest files, giving Google an easy way to audit them.

While it’s a bit of a bummer that Google is limiting what apps can use PiP on Android TV, it does make some sense. Google wants PiP activities to enhance or complement the experience of another full-screen activity. Apps that want to support PiP mode on Android TV must follow some basic TV app quality guidelines, many of which make sense. The guidelines include restricting apps from displaying promotional materials or ads using PiP windows, from using excessive resources or taking over audio focus in PiP mode, and from automatically entering PiP mode without explicit user action, among other things.

Due to the inconsistent availability of PiP on Android TV, many apps built for the platform don’t even bother to support the mode. Hopefully, with the introduction of PiP as an officially supported feature of the Android TV platform, support for more apps will follow. If Google hadn’t decided to skip Android 13 for TV last year, we could have had this feature a whole year earlier, but better late than never. Developers interested in adding picture-in-picture support to their Android TV apps should take a look at Google’s documentation, as there are several picture-related features (such as APIs for preserving clarity and the ability to set title and subtitles). which are specific to TVs.