Picture-in-picture (or PiP) has been available for iPad users since iOS 9 and Apple has enabled it this year on iPhone with iOS 14. However, YouTube has never supported this feature, allowing users to watch videos while using other apps . This may change now, as YouTube began testing the native picture-in-picture feature in its iOS app.
According to some reports on Twitter, picture-in-picture is slowly being rolled out to some users with the latest version of the YouTube app for iOS. Other reports say that the feature only works with a few videos, which may suggest that YouTube is still performing well.
9to5Mac could confirm that the feature is indeed being tested with a small group of users.
Once you have the photo-in-photo enabled, it works just like any other app that supports it. You can start playing a video and then close the app to continue viewing in a smaller window. The video floats across the home screen of iOS like any other app you use.
Here you can see a video of the photo-in-photo feature that works on an iPad:
Unfortunately, YouTube video playback in the background on iOS is restricted to YouTube Premium subscribers, which means photo-in-photo is also limited to users who pay for premium YouTube features. YouTube Premium costs $ 11.99 per month in the US, but if you subscribe via the YouTube app for iOS, you will end up paying $ 15.99 due to the 30% App Store commission.
It is worth mentioning that users with devices with iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and tvOS 14 can also watch 4K HDR videos for the first time in the YouTube app since Apple decided this year to add support for Google’s VP9 codec to has operating systems.
Google did not say when the company will enable picture-in-picture in the YouTube app on iOS for all users. If you have not yet enabled the picture-in-picture feature in the YouTube app or if you are not a YouTube Premium subscriber, check out our article that shows you how to watch YouTube videos in PiP via Safari.
YouTube app is available for free in the App Store.
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