Android 12 Beta 2: Picture-in-picture windows can no longer be resized by dragging the corners

Abner Li | Jun 9 2021 - 5:49 pm PT

While powerful, picture-in-picture is not implemented in the most user-friendly manner, Android 12 Beta 2 takes a crack at simplifying that experience by getting rid of resizing through corner dragging.

Rather, the fast way to enlarge a PiP window is by double-tapping. This action in Android 11 immediately opened the video player, but it now expands the video to be the full width of your screen. You can go back to the full application by tapping the button at the center of the player. Like in the earlier developer previews, pinching in/out with two fingers is available for finer adjustment.

Android 12 Beta 2 signals that corner dragging is gone by rounding the picture-in-picture window. In removing, Google does address how it was previously possible to accidentally expand the window when you’re just trying to move it out of the way.

Overall, there are still some bugs that need to be addressed, but double-tap and pinching are familiar enough gestures that people can get used to. The other big change in Android 12 is being able to tuck away PiP windows by snapping to the left or right edge.