YouTube rolls back controversial new PiP mini-player, brings the old one back

YouTube is now rolling back a controversial change to its picture-in-picture mini-player design that many users criticized for being too distracting and buggy.

Back in July, Google started rolling out a new floating picture-in-picture (PiP) mini-player. The new design had the mini-player bouncing between the corners of the screen. It replaced the stationary mini-player that used to appear just above the bottom bar in the app.

Some people liked the new design, but it seems the majority of users weren't pleased with it. It was bigger than the old design, it was distracting, and for many, it also was full of glitches.

If you were one of the people who disliked this change, you'd be delighted to learn that Google has heard you. The company is now rolling back the changes and restoring the old mini-player, which was more simple and took less space.


YouTube has been testing quite a few things recently and just like the new PiP window, not all of them are met with excitement.

One similar feature that YouTube is working on (it's still not officially rolled out though, just being tested at the moment) is a TikTok-like swipe-up gesture that moves you to the next video. The change seems counterintuitive because normally, swiping up from full-screen is used to exit full-screen, not to go to the next video.

I'm really happy to find out that Google has listened to people's complaints about the mini-player. All in all, updates exist to make apps better and give more functionality, and not to ruin something that worked perfectly fine and was good enough as is.