YouTube will finally offer native Picture in Picture (PiP) support on iOS soon—but only in the U.S.
The company told MacRumors that it’s “starting to roll out PiP for YouTube Premium members on iOS and plan to launch PiP for all US iOS users as well.” It didn’t say when—or even if—PiP support is expected to reach YouTube users outside the U.S. but presumably it will expand to other markets eventually.
Apple brought PiP, which allows a miniature video player to appear on top of other content, to the iPhone with the release of iOS 14 in 2020. (The feature was originally exclusive to iPads running iPadOS 13.) Netflix, Hulu, and many other video-based platforms were quick to update their apps to support the feature.
YouTube has been in no such rush. For a while it was possible to watch videos from the platform in PiP via its mobile website, but that feature was restricted to YouTube Premium subscribers in September 2020. There are workarounds based on the Shortcuts automation tool, but those aren’t always reliable, either.
This is a familiar pattern for the platform. Playing audio in the background is limited to YouTube Premium subscribers, for example, even though the feature is built into iOS. The only way to avoid those restrictions is to start a video in the Safari browser and use the Control Center to play it while the device is locked.
It’s unfortunate that PiP support will be restricted to YouTube Premium subscribers in the U.S. to start, but as long as those limitations truly are temporary, this should be a welcome change for those who don’t want to rely on workarounds to make the world’s most popular video platform support a feature built in to iOS.
