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A cozy, nearly idyllic small town full of an ensemble of quirky characters, grounded in the loving but frequently spiky relationship between single mom Lorelei (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel). I doubt that Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was trying to create a formula, but there are elements here that other creators have tried to recapture for a couple of decades now, to greater and lesser effect. The sharp, fast-paced dialogue, chemistry, and complex relationship between mother and daughter balance the charming, cutesy appeal of the Stars Hollow setting. At its best, the show balances its coziness with a sharp wit that keeps it from ever feeling cloying—as is the case with all of these shows that put complicated women in the lead.

Jane the Virgin (2014 – 2019)

Wild setup here in this telenovela-inspired romcom, but that's part of the fun. Gina Rodriguez is the title's Jane Gloriana Villanueva, a religious-ish waitress with dreams of becoming a romance novelist. She'd promised her grandmother that she'd maintain her virginity until marriage, a vow thoroughly complicated when she's artificially inseminated by mistake. The show has fun blending wild, telenovela-inspired, plot twists with more grounded character relationships, including among the three generations of women at the show's heart. Creator Jennie Snyder Urman was a co-producer on Gilmore Girls, and much of that influence is felt here, including in the ways that the show makes Miami feel like a small town. Buy Jane the Virgin from Prime Video.


Derry Girls (2018 – 2022)

A legitimate sitcom that just happens to be set in Northern Ireland during the violent Troubles of the 1990s, when clashes between nationalists and unionists frequently resulted in violence. It’s a fascinating contrast, brought to life by a writer and creator (Lisa McGee) who lived it. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny—though doesn’t make any allowances for audiences unaccustomed to Irish accents, so don’t feel bad if you need subtitles until you get the hang of it. Erin, Orla, Clare, and Michelle are joined by James, the only male student at their Catholic girls' school, dealing with normal growing-up stuff in absurd times. This world is a far cry from that of Stars Hollow, but there's the feel of a tight-knit community of quick-talking, quick-witted women (and one boy!) that strongly connects both shows. Stream Derry Girls on Netflix.


The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017 – 2023)

Amy Sherman-Palladino followed up Gilmore Girls in a big way with Mrs. Maisel, one of Prime’s first and buzziest original series. It's a comedy-drama about the title’s Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), a New York housewife of the late 1950s who discovers a talent for stand-up comedy. Inspired by the real-life careers of comedians like Totie Fields and Joan Rivers, the show is both warm and funny, with great performances and dialogue; it also achieves something rare in being a show about comedy that’s actually funny. Mrs. Maisel and her '50s New York milieu are far from Stars Hollow, but there's a similar wit and quippiness to the dialogue, albeit with references that are more appropriately tailored to the era. And, as with Lorelei, our lead is a funny, complicated woman who's not afraid to dream (and mess up) big. Stream The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Prime Video.


Ginny & Georgia (2021 – )

There's a moment in the first episode of this show when single mom Georgia describes herself and daughter Ginny as "...like the Gilmore Girls, but with bigger boobs!" So there you have it. Brianne Howey plays Georgia, who became a mom at 15 and who's been fleeing for much of that time, escaping from more than one abusive relationship and going to whatever lengths have been necessary (including possibly murder) in order to protect her two kids. As Ginny (Antonia Gentry) comes of age, she's forced to come to terms with her mom's actions (Ginny generally gets bits of backstory alongside us, the audience) and to try to understand the reasons behind them. Their relationship is close, but also complicated and sometimes antagonistic. Stream Ginny & Georgia on Netflix.


Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015 – 2019)

Inexplicably underrated, the sitcom Crazy Ex-Girlfriend staged wildly ambitious, and consistently hilarious, musical numbers throughout its four season run. The show stars Rachel Bloom as Rebecca Bunch, a a Yale- and Harvard-educated lawyer who works for a major NYC firm, and who throws it all away to chase a crush from her teenage years to a small town in California. Most impressively, the show dives into real-life issues around mental illness and treatment with humor, but also genuine compassion and frankness, doing a way better job than most other shows. The connective thread here is a lead, like Lorelei, who gets to be a believable, fully realized character while making some very, very questionable decisions on her way toward a more authentic life. Buy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Prime Video.


Étoile (2025)

Amy Sherman-Palladino and David Palladino returned to TV, and to the ballet world (following Bunheads), for this series about two world-renowned ballet companies (one in NYC and one in Paris) that decide to spice things up by swapping their most talented dancers. Each company is on the brink of financial disaster, and so Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby), director of the Metropolitan Ballet, and Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), director of of Le Ballet National, come up with the plan, and recruit an eccentric billionaire (Simon Callow) to pay for it. Much of the comedy comes from the mismatched natures of their swapped dancers, and there's a tangible love of ballet that keeps things light, despite the fancy title. Stream Étoile on Prime Video.


Hart of Dixie (2011 – 2015)

A little more schmaltzy than Gilmore Girls, perhaps, but if you're in the market for some more Gilmore-esque cutesy/quirky/townie vibes, then this one will fit the bill, all the more so because it's kinda the same town. Rachel Bilson plays Zoe Hart, who moves from New York to the small town of Bluebell, Alabama, to take over part of her father's medical practice—she didn't have much choice, given that her poor bedside manner made her virtually unemployable. So now she has to rebuild a life among three generations of family in a town full of eccentrics who love to hold festivals and hang out at the gazebo—the exit same gazebo from Stars Hollow, it happens, as both shows were filmed on the same Warner Bros. lot, making Bluebell a very good vibe match. Stream Hart of Dixie on Prime Video.


Parenthood (2010 – 2015)

Following Gilmore Girls, Lauren Graham traded in her role as single mother Lorelei for the role of single mother Sarah, at the head of a large intergenerational ensemble. Craig T. Nelson plays the Braverman family patriarch with Graham, Peter Krause, Dax Shepard, and Erika Christensen as the four kids with families of their own. As with Gilmore, the comedy-drama revels in its distinctive characters and (relatively) low stakes. Stream Parenthood on Paramount+.


The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022 – 2025)

The emphasis here is less on a mother-daughter relationship than in most of these other shows, but Summer still feels like a bit of a match for Gilmore Girls in its universe of flawed and quirky characters. Adapted from the trilogy of YA bestsellers by Jenny Han, this series focuses on the coming-of-age of teenager Belly Conklin (Lola Tung), who is 16 as the series starts. Belly and her family spend every summer at Cousins Beach with the Fisher family, a tradition that's all well and good until she starts to develop a romantic attraction for first one Fisher brother (Christopher Briney), then the other (Gavin Casalegno), planting the seeds for a love triangle that unfolds over the course of several summers, and that sees Belly grow into young adulthood to a soundtrack made up largely of Taylor Swift tunes. They're not identical, but Belly feels a bit like an updated take on Rory, and Cousins Beach has cozy Stars Hollow vibes. The three-season run is over, but there's a continuation movie on the way. Stream The Summer I Turned Pretty on Prime Video.


The Café (2011 – 2013)

An intergenerational trio of women with quippy, fast-paced dialogue in a sleepy community full of quirky characters? Let's head off to the town of to the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England, where Londoner Sara (Michelle Terry) has returned home following job and romantic disappointments. She helps her mom, Carol (Ellie Haddington), to run the little café that she owns, while mom's just hoping to get her married off and grandma Mary (June Ellis) is full of stories that people only occasionally want to hear. It's dry in that British way and as cozy as they come, as long as you don't mind a more leisurely pace. While only running for two seasons, the show wraps up nicely. Stream The Café on Peacock and Britbox.


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Cobalt has introduced Cobalt Autonomous Pentest, a new offering that enables continuous offensive security across an organization’s application portfolio by delivering actionable penetration testing results in as little as 24 hours.

Cobalt Autonomous Pentest

AI-assisted development enables organizations to ship software faster than ever, while attackers are using AI to automate reconnaissance and accelerate exploitation. Pentesting performed quarterly or even monthly, can no longer keep pace. As security teams face growing attack surfaces and constrained budgets, organizations need a more scalable approach to identifying and validating exploitable risk.

Cobalt Autonomous Pentest is integrated in the Cobalt Offensive Security Platform, and delivers this scale through three core capabilities:

  • Expert direction: Seasoned Cobalt pentesters direct every engagement. Pentesters review the execution plan, enforce scope discipline, and bring the creative adversary reasoning that pure-AI tools cannot replicate.
  • Model agnostic: The model-agnostic AI engine handles chain prediction, prioritization, and adaptive sequencing. Informed by 13 years of exploit data, it adapts as the frontier evolves and threat actor techniques change.
  • Findings in 24 hours: Cobalt delivers next-day findings into Jira, GitHub, Slack, and 50+ other tools. Every finding includes proof of exploit where applicable, reproduction steps, and tailored remediation guidance so teams can act immediately.

According to Omdia Research, 94% of organizations see the importance of keeping humans in the loop for offensive security programs. Cobalt places human expertise at the center of its autonomous solution. The Cobalt Autonomous Pentest leverages the Cobalt Core, the company’s community of approximately 500 rigorously vetted pentesters.

“Meeting the demands of today’s development cycles requires more than automating traditional pentesting,” said Sonali Shah, CEO, Cobalt.

“It requires rethinking how offensive security is delivered. Only Cobalt unifies the four critical elements of modern offensive security: elite human expertise, a context-aware platform, AI-powered orchestration, and the industry’s largest dataset of real-world pentest results. Together, these capabilities enable security teams to continuously identify, prioritize, and remediate exploitable risk at the speed of modern software development.”

The Cobalt Autonomous Pentest draws from more than 10,000 critical and high-severity findings. This combination of exploit data and human expertise allows organizations to scale fast, flexible, and precise coverage across their entire attack surface. It extends coverage across the portfolio and complements human-led, comprehensive pentesting for compliance-driven engagements, the right testing model and depth for every asset.


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Roborock threw its hat into the wireless robot lawn mower game this month with the AI-powered Roborock X120H robot lawn mower. If you’re still spending precious time pushing a mower around on hot days, you might want to consider this convenient home automation device, especially given its launch-period sale, which brings the price down by around $700 to $2,499.99, originally $3,199.

It can mow up to half an acre and uses a combination of LiDAR and AI vision navigation, AWD, active steering, a high cutting range, and a Dynamic Suspension System, making it a strong option for difficult or uneven terrain. There’s no need for a perimeter wire or RTK antenna, thanks to its 360-degree LiDAR scanner and binocular vision, which can also help with navigation under trees. It has AWD (aka, four-wheel drive), active front-wheel steering, and it can tackle slopes up to 38.7 degrees and obstacles up to 3.1 inches.

It has knobby wheels and comes with six blades with a cutting-height range of 1.57 to 3.54 inches, which is useful for both weekly maintenance and for those who keep a taller lawn. It has a 9.45-inch cutting width, plus a rain sensor and an IPX6 rating, meaning it can be hosed down after use. When it detects rain, it returns to its charging station and resumes mowing after its rain-delay period. Like most robot mowers, it can be controlled through the Roborock app. It also includes three years of free 4G connectivity for remote tracking, along with a PIN- and GPS-based anti-theft system.

There are still relatively few robot mowers that use LiDAR, so if you have uneven or mixed terrain, this model is a good choice. LiDAR also helps it navigate in low light, cluttered yards, and more complex layouts. Combined with AWD and its high-cut capability, the Roborock X120H robot lawn mower is a promising option for small to medium lawns.

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For all the Garmin fans out there who have been utterly ruthless about leaks, today is your day: Garmin has launched the Cirqa Smart Band for $199.99. After months of speculation, it’s finally official, and I've spent the last few hours wearing one. Here's everything we know so far about Garmin's first screenless smart band, along with my first impressions.

My first impressions of the Garmin Cirqa Smart Band

The Cirqa is Garmin's entry into the increasingly crowded arena of screenless smart band fitness trackers. On paper, it looks like a middle ground between the Fitbit Air ($99.99) and Whoop (which famously has tiered subscription-based pricing; Whoop charges $239/year for its medium-tier subscription, including a Whoop 5.0 device). My colleague Beth Skwarecki compares those two bands here, and I look forward to seeing how she thinks the Cirqa fits into the market.

The pitch, in Garmin's words, is that its band "reduces distraction while still delivering full-day health and fitness tracking." You get 24/7 monitoring of heart rate, stress, Body Battery, Pulse Ox, and skin temperature, all viewable after the fact in the Garmin Connect app. The Cirqa automatically detects and classifies your workouts, and allegedly gets better at that classification over time as you go into the Garmin Connect app and confirm or correct what it thinks you were doing.

Garmin Cirqa
At long last: the Cirqa. Credit: Meredith Dietz

It comes in four colors: Black, “Captain” (navy) blue, French Gray, and Mauve. It has fabric straps in S/M and L/XL sizes. There's a Velcro-style design to adjust sizing. The strap uses quick-release pin connectors rather than a traditional buckle, and threads through a small metal loop.

Physically, the sensor module is long—47mm, which happens to match the diameter of the Forerunner 970's face. Whoop, by comparison, is similarly wide but noticeably shorter top to bottom. Garmin has a reputation for generally catering to bigger wrists, and the Cirqa upholds that pattern. I'd say the design lands closest to the Polar Loop, rather than the Fitbit Air or Whoop. And while this is a mere hours-long impression talking, the long sensor doesn't seem like a drawback, and Garmin has made a strong case for the device at least in terms of lightweight comfort.

The Cirqa next to my Garmin Forerunner 970.
The Cirqa next to my Garmin Forerunner 970. Credit: Meredith Dietz

Beth sent along some photos of the Fitbit Air, Whoop 5.0/MG, Polar Loop, and Amazfit Helio Strap, so you can get a sense of how the Cirqa stacks up visually.

The Fitbit Air on the left; Whoop 5.0/MG on the right.
The Fitbit Air on the left; Whoop 5.0/MG on the right. Credit: Beth Skwarecki
The Polar Loop on the left; Amazfit Helio Strap on the right.
The Polar Loop on the left; Amazfit Helio Strap on the right. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

No subscription (for now)

Garmin is leaning hard into "no subscription required" for this device at launch. I asked a rep directly about whether that could change down the line. With standard disclaimers about not speaking to any future roadmap, Garmin says it won't suddenly wall off features that are free today. Any future paid tier would be additive, with new features available behind a subscription, rather than existing stuff pulled behind a paywall.

This tracks with how Garmin has generally behaved with Connect+ so far. Remember, a screen-free band means the Garmin Connect app is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Things like deeper training insights, expanded badges/gamification, and so on would all live in the app. None of this is confirmed, but it's a fairly predictable shape a future paywall would take, so I'll be keeping an eye on it for you.

The Cirqa's sensor is basically the Gen 4 "plus"

The optical sensor inside Cirqa is Garmin's older Elevate Gen 4 hardware, not the Gen 5 sensor found in Garmin's newer watches, and not the one in Garmin's own Index Sleep Monitor, which launched last year for tracking heart rate, Pulse Ox, stress, breathing rate, and skin temperature (basically everything short of ECG support).

But wait—there's more. Cirqa may not get a Gen 5 sensor, but it does add skin temperature to the older Gen 4 base, which functionally makes it something like a Gen 4-plus (my unofficial phrasing). The skin temperature reading is crucial for women's health tracking and Garmin's Natural Cycles partnership.

Still, to Garmin fans, an older sensor might feel like a disappointment given all the rumors and speculation over this smart band launch. Whether it results in disappointing data is something I'll be testing over the next couple of weeks.

Comparison to the Garmin Forerunner 970's Gen 5 sensor; the Cirqa's physical side button.
Comparison to the Garmin Forerunner 970's Gen 5 sensor; the Cirqa's physical side button. Credit: Meredith Dietz

The button on the Cirqa is exciting for smart band fans

Screen-free trackers typically give you nothing to physically interact with (Whoop and the Fitbit Air are both buttonless). This makes the Cirqa's side button mildly exciting: Tapping a button is so much easier than going into an app or waiting for activity detection you later need to edit for accuracy.

Here’s everything I know about the button so far:

  • One press starts (and later stops) whatever activity you've set as your "favorite" in Garmin Connect, with the module vibrating and an LED flashing green while it records.

  • Alarm snooze (press) and stop (hold)

  • Pairing mode (triple-press or ~6s hold)

  • Optional HR broadcast toggle (3s hold, if enabled)

  • Silence Find My Band

You can't pause mid-activity from the button itself, but if you do press "stop," the LED flashes red until you save, resume, or discard the activity in the app. How this is functionally different from pausing, I'll let you know after my testing.

Is the Cirqa a good value?

The Cirqa is $199.99, with an optional armband accessory for $59.99 if you'd rather wear it above the elbow than on your wrist (useful for people who find wrist-based trackers get in the way of their workouts). Frankly, this premium price is consistent with Garmin's brand these days. Garmin seems to be betting that its ecosystem (and, in the case of this smart band, its no-subscription promise) are worth charging a premium for right out the gate.

Here's a cursory overview of where the Cirqa stands when judged against the competition:

  • The Fitbit Air launched at $99.99, with an optional Google Health Premium subscription.

  • The Amazfit Helio Strap is $99.99 as well, with no mandatory subscription.

  • Polar's Loop sits at $199, like the Cirqa.

  • Whoop—aka the device everyone in this category is implicitly compared against—doesn't sell hardware outright at all. Its cheapest tier, Whoop One, is $199 a year for the current Whoop 5.0 hardware, with Peak at $239 and the ECG-equipped Whoop MG only available on the $359-a-year Life tier.

Garmin's pitch is that by buying Cirqa once for $199.99, you'll match a full year of Whoop's cheapest plan, with nothing more owed. And of course, Garmin's advantage isn't really the hardware. The assumption is that if you already live in that ecosystem—training load, HRV status, recovery, VO2 max, all the metrics Garmin fans feel they can't live without—you'll pay a premium to keep all that data unified, rather than start over somewhere cheaper. For the Cirqa specifically, a Garmin rep told me that feature-for-feature, the Cirqa is comparable to the Venu 4 smartwatch, which costs $549.99.

Ultimately, whether Garmin's features are truly worth an extra hundred dollars depends on how deeply embedded you already are in Garmin's world. For someone shopping this category cold, with no existing Garmin gear, it's a much harder sell when there are competing devices selling for $99.99.


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There are certain times of year we expect major tech events: Samsung hosts Galaxy Unpacked in January or February; Google hosts I/O during May; Apple's WWDC kicks off in June; and, in July, it's, um, Galaxy Unpacked...again. (I suppose that means 2026 is officially halfway through.)

While both events have the same name, Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked events are, indeed, different. February's Galaxy Unpacked, for example, unveiled the new Galaxy S26 series, including the Galaxy S26 Ultra's new Privacy Display. The company also announced its Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro earbuds. July's Unpacked will likely be a bit different. Here's what to expect, and how to watch:

What to expect from Samsung's July 2026 Galaxy Unpacked

Where February's Unpacked was all about Samsung's flagship smartphones, July's Unpacked will likely focus on the company's foldables. As last year's foldables were the Galaxy Z 7 series (including the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Galaxy Z Fold 7), it's likely the company will release the Galaxy Z 8 series this year, including the Galaxy Z Flip 8, the Galaxy Z Fold 8, and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra.

There might be more to the story than meets the eye, however. As Mashable reports, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra might be, for all intents and purposes, the Galaxy Z Fold 8—as in, the expected successor to the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The device Samsung calls the Galaxy Z Fold 8 might actually be a new device entirely, and may feature a wider display, though within a smaller frame. Samsung may also take the opportunity to roll out its next generation of smartwatches—the Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2—which rumors suggest won't be changed much from the previous generation.

Mashable also reports that Samsung will likely raise prices on these devices. That's no shock: As AI companies gobble up RAM and storage hardware, those goods are getting more expensive. As such, companies around the world are raising prices to protect their profits. Even Samsung itself said in April that it wouldn't be able to meet memory production demand this year, so it won't be surprising to see the company raise prices on its newest Galaxy devices. That could mean $100 increases across the board: The Fold 8 Ultra could start as high as $2,099, while the Flip 8 could cost $1,199.

How to watch Samsung's July Galaxy Unpacked

Samsung isn't making it hard to watch its latest Galaxy Unpacked event. While the company is holding a limited in-person event for media, anyone with an internet connection can stream the keynote from home.

Galaxy Unpacked kicks off Wednesday, July 22 at 9 a.m. ET. You can watch it on Samsung's official website or on the company's official YouTube channel.


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Siri AI is the biggest feature of Apple's upcoming suite of updates. Whether you're running iOS 27, macOS 27, or even watchOS 27, the thing that you'll likely notice first (assuming you're running a compatible device) is that Siri is much smarter now, and even more capable than it was in previous versions. If the beta previews have been any indication, this really is the biggest upgrade Apple has ever given Siri.

But it seems that the company isn't limiting itself to the upgrades it already announced. As it continues beta testing these new updates, and with them, Siri AI itself, Apple seems to be tinkering with its new AI-powered assistant, quietly planting new features that beta testers need to discover for themselves. One such feature? A new Siri AI menu that appears whenever you highlight text in macOS 27.

How Siri AI's hidden menu works in macOS 27

As reported by MacRumors, this new menu appears whenever you select text in macOS 27. When you do, you'll see a floating menu in the top left of your highlighted text. If you move your cursor over it, the menu expands to reveal options, such as "Proofread," "Rewrite," "How does this sound?" and "Edit with Siri." You can also ask Siri AI to pull out key points from the text, or summarize it completely. Depending on the text, you might see other options, too: If you highlight a text from a friend, Siri AI might show you contact info; if the text contains a date, Siri AI might prompt you to create a Calendar entry. It plays into Siri AI's contextual awareness, which is part of Apple's mission to make its assistant more useful in specific scenarios.

The thing is, this menu is disabled by default, as least as of macOS 27 developer beta 3 and public beta 1. Apple did not include it in the release notes, either; instead, a Redditor stumbled upon it, and shared instructions for turning it on on r/MacOSBeta.

How to enable Siri AI's menu in macOS 27

Keep in mind, this feature, as with macOS 27 as a whole, is in beta testing. MacRumors says that the feature does not always work, so you may run into odd bugs or glitches after turning it on. Still, if you're already running the beta and are curious, this is an interesting feature to explore.

To try it out, you'll need to open your Mac's Terminal app. Then, paste and run the following command: sudo mkdir -p /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain && sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool true

You'll need to restart your Mac for the feature to take effect. But once you do, you should see the menu whenever you highlight text—albeit with some possible hiccups. If the feature is too unstable at this point, or you simply don't like it, you can undo it by pasting the following command into Terminal: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool false


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Picture-in-picture (PiP) is great for us multitaskers. While some prefer to pay full attention to their content, others prefer to keep videos running while attending to other tasks. I frequently have a video playing in PiP on both my iPhone and Mac, while I scan headlines, chat with friends, or take care of any to-do that only requires half my focus.

While there are ways to manually trigger PiP, it's best on mobile, as most video player apps have adopted a natural method: When you play a video, you can simply leave the app, and the video continues playing in a PiP window. It's now muscle memory for me on iOS: I head to YouTube, choose a video, and swipe out of the app, knowing my video will keep running as I move to other apps on my iPhone.

YouTube PiP is broken (especially on iOS)

Of course, like most things, PiP is only good when it works. You might have recently tried the exact shortcut I just described, only to find that nothing actually happens. You close out of YouTube, but your video doesn't follow in a PiP window. (Though it may still continue to play in the background.) And while some of you might be Android users, I'd be willing to bet most are on iPhones. What gives?

As reported by 9to5Google, YouTube is currently experiencing issues with PiP. This isn't something only a handful of users are dealing with. The problem is apparently so widespread, YouTube has confirmed the issue directly. In a statement on YouTube Help, a Google employee shared the following:

"We're aware that some of you are experiencing issues with the Picture-in-Picture (PiP) feature failing to trigger when exiting the YouTube app. While the vast majority of these reports are coming from iOS users, we are also seeing a significantly lower volume of reports from Android users...Our teams are actively investigating the issue, and we'll update this thread as soon as we have more information." At the time of writing, over 11,600 users hit the "I have the same question" button on this YouTube Help post.

Is there any way to fix PiP in the YouTube app?

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there is any workaround. For what it's worth, PiP was intermittent for me this morning in the YouTube app on iOS. I had no problem swiping out of a video into PiP mode during an ad, but once the video started playing, PiP didn't work. Not only that, but playback stopped as well. I went back to YouTube, played the video again, and when I left the app this time, PiP kicked in. This continued on and off, not working one time, but working the next.


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