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Apple is adding picture-in-picture mode to the Apple TV

Apple is adding picture-in-picture mode to the Apple TV

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Watch something and browse around your Apple TV at the same time

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple seemingly left one new, upcoming tvOS feature out of the company’s WWDC keynote earlier this month: picture-in-picture. 9to5Mac reports that today’s developer beta of tvOS 13 allows Apple TV users to shrink down any video playing in the Apple TV app to a corner of the screen and continue browsing through other content and menus — while still watching whatever video was originally playing. Unfortunately a public beta for tvOS 13 isn’t yet available and is expected in July.

For now, picture-in-picture is said to be limited to the Apple TV app, but hopefully the same functionality comes to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and other popular streaming services. If nothing else, it’d allow you to start watching something “eh” and dig through the selection of other apps in hopes of finding a better pick. Or maybe you’d be able to keep tabs on a sports game while playing an Apple Arcade title. Some third-party apps like PlayStation Vue already have their own picture-in-picture solutions; you can watch four live channels simultaneously with Sony’s TV service.

If you’ve ever used picture-in-picture mode on an iPad, this basically looks the same. Inside the smaller video window you’ll see options to maximize it back to full screen or exit out of the content entirely.

There’s the possibility that PIP might not make it into the final tvOS update this fall — especially since it didn’t get a mention from Apple onstage — but it’s a pretty straightforward feature and nice complement to the other tvOS 13 additions like multi-user support.