PIP, not the package installer for Python that I have a love/hate(ok, mostly hate) relationship :] but the picture-in-picture mode that allows you to have a video in the corner, is something considerable; a prominent way for you to efficiently make use of your screen real estate.
Sure, you can also split the screen or put an iPad to the side but PIP is highly efficient and not to mention, it’s way cheaper.
The Problem
The good thing about Apple is that once they’ve a new feature, it’s usually implemented across all of their line-up so you get a nice uniformity of features.
In that case, if you stick with their environment, you’re in luck. Which until recently was the case for me since I am still a macOS user but not a Safari user due to the fact that I’m now considering that Safari, even though quite performant(which I have a lot of respect to it’s engineers for this reason), is under-developed!
Safari’s got a nice interface even though I’m questioning some of Apple’s design decision lately, namely too plain, but it could definitely have more features. And I’m not talking about anything major but minor features that makes a power user’s life easier.
And more importantly, in recent times, Apple seems to be dismissing software quality that minor bugs keep occurring and pissing the hell out of a power-user like me.
Anyways, hence, I switched to Firefox(I despise Chrome’s lack of care for performance and don’t want to give Google more information) and now I’m happier while browsing the web.
However, I lost the feature of PIP which sucks! Yes, Mozilla finally unveiled a stable version of Firefox with PIP support but it’s their custom implementation that works in Firefox only. If you switch to another application it’s lost. I need something better…
Enter IINA
IINA is a new video player on the block. Open-source and written with Swift by the way! It combines Apple’s design language with VLC’s capabilities(haven’t made a full comparison yet but it’s a lot more capable than QuickTime Player).
Until now, I had to use two video players at once but with IINA, I can just stick to it because it’s both as capable as VLC and as good looking as QuickTime Player.
Firefox & IINA
There is a little add-on of Firefox for IINA that enables you to open the currently playing video stream in Firefox in IINA. Once there, you can use IINA’s PIP feature to have the video playing in your corner. Hey, problem solved!
It’s a bit more time consuming than Safari’s direct integration but if you’re not using Safari and you want PIP, this is the best workaround there is. At least what I could find out.
One problem IINA has is that it doesn’t work well with live YouTube streams but that could change in the future.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, Firefox’s PIP feature is a custom implementation of theirs and truth be told, I find it disappointing. I get that Mozilla has to have a shared codebase in between the platforms they support but if a certain platform has a vivid advantage in a certain aspect, they should make use of it.
One advantage of IINA is that IINA is a more capable video player; has a better interface.
I wish Mozilla would embrace the native PIP of macOS but for now, I’m happy with this workaround.
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