Techdows spotted two major Chrome for Android developments. First, it looks like Google is preparing immersive video playback for Chrome on Android XR, based on a set of new changes spotted in Chromium. Second, Google plans to turn on the “Buy Now Buy Later” feature by default in Chrome for Android.
Chrome for Android XR adds Immersive Playback
According to a Chromium CL, Chrome will be able to move video beyond the usual full-screen or Picture-in-Picture experience and place it into a more immersive XR environment instead.
Google has also added a new immersive_video_playback_enabled web preference, which means Chrome can now detect when a video becomes effectively full screen and begin the flow needed to request immersive playback. This feature has been added to Blink, which is the rendering engine of Google Chrome.
Another CL on Chromium Gerrit confirms that Chrome for Android internally includes a confirmation dialog UI that asks for user intent before entering immersive mode. At the same time, ThinWebView is gaining support for spatial surface views, which appear to be necessary for rendering video inside an XR space.
If you put it all together, it becomes quite obvious that Chrome’s Android XR Impressive Playback integration is near.
Chrome for Android tests Buy Now Pay Later by default
Chrome’s autofill has a feature that allows you to buy now, pay later, which simply means you can make a transaction using Google Pay now, but choose to make payments in installments. This payment method is available when you use Google Pay to make an online purchase at select merchants.
Until now, it’s been an optional feature that is turned off by default, but a new CL by a Google engineer suggests that Buy Now Pay Later will be enabled by default.