Instead of just showing videos, it could support ‘arbitrary HTML content.’
The latest Chrome beta, version 111, includes a trial for a feature that could make the browser’s picture-in-picture feature significantly more useful. Instead of being only for playing videos, Google’s looking into letting it display basically any web content in a floating window that stays on top of all your other windows.
There are quite a few ways this feature, which is called Document Picture-in-Picture, could be useful. Some of Google’s examples are mostly just spins on how picture-in-picture already works, such as video players but with custom UI (such as buttons to like or dislike a video, a timeline, or captions), or a miniplayer for video conferences that let you see a grid of people and access controls to mute yourself or raise a hand.
But it’s easy to imagine entire applets that take advantage of the API too; there’s a pomodoro website that’s already using it with supported browsers, and I’d absolutely use a website that gave me a picture-in-picture notepad or task list. Google also suggests the feature could be used to show, say, a playlist for your music.