YouTube Reveals Exciting Feature For iPhone And iPad

Are you tired of YouTube videos failing to appear in a small player on your iPhone or iPad while scrolling through other apps? That's changing for some users, as YouTube is rolling out its picture-by-picture (PiP) feature for devices running iOS 15 and newer, the company announced on Twitter.

The only caveat is that the picture-in-picture mode is exclusively for YouTube TV subscribers. However, Google has been testing the same functionality for YouTube Premium users since February, and the testing period for them ends on April 8, 2022, according to YouTube's Labs page. Although it plans on expanding the feature to those without a Premium feature at some point, it hasn't given a specific date as to when that will happen.

In case you haven't used the feature before on Android or you're not well-versed in multitasking, picture-in-picture is triggered when you swipe up from the bottom of your screen to return to the home page while watching a YouTube video. This gesture causes the video to shrink down into a mini-player that appears in the corner of the screen, enabling users to watch the video while also browsing the internet or using other apps. For example, if you're watching the Oscars on YouTube TV and you catch a random moment like Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, you can scale the video down and head over to Twitter to tweet about what happened and see other people's reactions to it.

Because YouTube is rolling out the picture-in-picture feature, not every iOS user who has a YouTube TV subscription is going to see it right away. However, if you're lucky enough to get that update, it's very simple to enable it, according to Google Support.

When you open up the YouTube app, tap on your profile picture located in the top right corner of the screen and then hit "Settings." From there, you should head into "General," scroll down until you see "Picture-in-picture," and then toggle it on. If you decide the feature is too overwhelming, you can repeat the process to disable it.

Since Google owns YouTube, it's not surprising that Android users have been enjoying the picture-in-picture feature with their YouTube TV subscriptions since 2017. This arrival on iOS is definitely exciting, but it could be better. iPhone and iPad users are still waiting for access to picture-in-picture support for regular on-demand YouTube videos, something that isn't hinged on a Premium subscription. At this time, Apple mobile device users are still forced to open a video using the Safari browser in order to launch it in PiP mode.