For years, Android users have dreamed about taking advantage of the millions of music videos on YouTube and using the app as a music player on their devices. The YouTube app has always made this extremely difficult since it is one of the only Android apps that is completely incapable of multitasking. If you start a video and leave the app, the video shuts down—it doesn't even save your spot. It looks like that's about to change, though, and you'll finally be able to be use YouTube as a multitasking-capable music player. Android Police ripped apart the latest YouTube APK and found a new setting titled "Background Audio."

The new option says that YouTube will "continue playing audio when the app is running in the background or the screen is switched off," so you'll be able to start a video, leave the YouTube app, and the video will continue to play. The text is in the newest release of YouTube for Android, version 5.2.27, but it is not currently enabled. Android Police managed to edit a few files and force the new option to show up in the above screenshot.

5.2.27 also brings a few under-the-hood changes in preparation for the coming offline support, but that feature is not enabled yet, either. Usually, hidden features like this take a few updates before they are fully finished, but it's great to see that Google is working on them. We should expect background audio and offline support to roll out to everyone within the next update or two.