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Multitasking is one of Android’s greatest strengths in iOS as a mobile operating system. With features like split screen view, picture-in-picture mode, and speech bubbles, Android offers plenty of ways to interact with apps while using other apps. In Android 12, picture-in-picture mode is set to get a lot of new features, while bubbles can undergo subtle animation adjustments.
Picture-in-picture mode on Android 12
Picture-in-picture mode was first introduced for Android Oreo phones, but it has seen relatively few functional updates since then. In Android 11, Google quietly added the ability to resize PiP windows. Extending / collapsing a PiP window involves sliding your finger in or out starting just outside one of the corners. In my experience the gesture is a bit inconsistent and can be improved.
Resize picture-in-picture windows on Android 11
Fortunately, Google is working on new ways to resize PiP windows in Android 12. You’ll be able to pinch to resize and double-tap to automatically resize the window to its maximum size (or revert to its last resized state). A nice crossfade animation will be used when resizing, making it transparent.
Resizing adjustments aren’t all that’s new for picture-in-picture mode in Android 12. Google is also preparing to add a “hiding” feature to PiP windows. This feature will allow users to temporarily hide most of the PiP window by dragging it to the left / right edge until about a third of the PiP window is off-screen. Users can also open the PiP window to hide it from edge to edge. PiP windows can be unarchived by simply tapping on them.
New bubble animations
Android’s Bubbles feature arose out of a desire to replace the operating system’s broad System_Alert_Window API with a more focused API that exists to give all messaging apps the functionality of Facebook chat heads. It’s gone from an Android 10 beta feature to a public Android 11 feature, and in Android 12 it’s ready to receive some UI changes. First of all, Google is working on new animations for bubbles. There will be fade / reduce animation when moving an enlarged bubble, smoother enlarge / reduce animations, and a smoother transition between bubbles. In landscape mode, bubbles will be displayed vertically on the left / right side rather than horizontally at the top. Google also allows flexible bubble sizing and fixed positioning, two features supposedly designed for Chrome OS and its ARC ++ container.
A video showing the features of Android 11’s Bubbles in Facebook Messenger.
Application pairs
Along with changes to PiP windows and bubbles, Google is also gearing up to upgrade Android’s split-screen multitasking system with the addition of app pairs. Application pairs will allow you to launch pairs of configured applications to launch in split-screen mode, a feature that first appeared in software from other OEMs and third-party developers. 9to5Google first revealed the existence of this feature, and now we can confirm that it is present in Android 12.
We don’t know what these changes will look like in Android 12, but we probably won’t have to wait long to find out. These features may not be active in the first version of Android 12 Developer Preview, and if so, we will try to enable them so that we can demonstrate these changes.
Featured Image: Picture-in-Picture Mode in Android 11
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