YouTube’s iPhone app will now have a long-awaited feature namely picture-in-picture mode (PiP), which has been requested by many users for since long. All Premium subscribers will have access to the viewer in the near future, and YouTube says it aims to make PiP available to all iOS users in the United States.
“Picture-in-Picture allows users to view YouTube videos in a small micro player while concurrently surfing outside of the YouTube app on their mobile device,” explains the company spokesperson in a press release. “We’re starting to roll out PiP to YouTube Premium subscribers on iOS, and we aim to roll out PiP to all iOS users in the United States in the near future.”
Apple introduced PiP to the iPhone last year as part of the iOS 14 software update. The functionality is already supported by a large number of video streaming applications, including Netflix, Twitch, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Apple TV. In spite of the fact that YouTube has supported PiP on Android since 2018, it has been a noteworthy holdout on iOS until its recent change of heart, which was originally reported by MacRumors.
However, users found a while back that YouTube videos could be played in a tiny window above other applications on iOS and iPadOS, despite the fact that official support for picture-in-picture is now allegedly making its way to the platforms. However, according to reports, either YouTube or Apple removed this feature in September of last year. It was only afterward discovered that the functionality was once again functional with Safari and other browsers. In the end, the back-and-forth will result in the official support for PiP for YouTube for iOS.
Some iOS users have discovered solutions for watching YouTube videos over PiP. It has been reported to function via the YouTube mobile website on occasion, and some users have reported accessing it using Shortcuts. YouTube has not provided a timeframe for the implementation of PiP, although it is expected that such techniques will be phased away over time.
PiP functionality on the YouTube app has been long delayed, and it’s encouraging to see that it will be available to all users, not just Premium subscribers, at least in the United States.