Google is notorious for abandoning projects, big or small. There’s an entire site dedicated to chronicling everything Google has sent the way of the dodo. And now it seems a useful feature — YouTube picture-in-picture — is being removed from Google Messages, and I have no clue why.
Introduced back in 2022, the concept was quite simple: let users watch a YouTube video within the Messages app. It was similar to how shared YouTube links work in WhatsApp, where the app shows the thumbnail and plays the video in a popup player. This removes the friction of having to open the YouTube app every time your friend sends you a clip.
In a recent APK teardown of the latest beta, it was found that all the code to make that feature work had been removed from Google Messages. I tried it myself with a public release version of the app, and though I can still see thumbnails, tapping the link opens the YouTube app.
Yes, my friend took this opportunity to rickroll me. | Image credit — PhoneArena
Of course, this doesn’t mean it is confirmed that this feature is going away. Beta versions of apps can sometimes include features, or lack thereof, that may change in the final version. But if picture-in-picture is already not working in a public version of Messages, it’s unlikely it will come back.
I have no idea why Google would remove a quality of life feature like this one. Perhaps YouTube is about to undergo some changes that will make picture-in-picture impossible. Or, maybe this will somehow become another YouTube Premium feature. Regardless of the reason, Google’s graveyard is growing day by day.
Google Glass was another project abandoned by Google years ago that I still haven’t gotten over. But now that the tech giant is going all in on AI with its flagship model Gemini, I’m hoping that the teased AI-powered AR smart glasses become a reality.
As someone who keeps his fingers crossed for the XR (Extended Reality) industry’s success, I’m hopeful for a spiritual successor to Google Glass.
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Abdullah is an ardent believer in the future of VR, and can't wait to see what more it brings to the table as technology improves. He enjoys covering new software releases in the XR industry, as well as major news about hardware and companies focused on VR.
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