After many months of waiting, many iPhone users can now use YouTube’s picture-in-picture feature through the platform’s app, eliminating the necessity to open a video in Safari to use the PiP mode. The feature was promised earlier this year after users complained that they might only access the feature if they signed up for Premium.
In June, YouTube said that it had been rolling out picture-in-picture support for Premium subscribers within the US who access the platform using an iOS device. At that point, the corporate had also promised that its PiP support for iOS would arrive for free of charge users within the US later.
If you head over to YouTube’s Experimental Feature website, you’ll note that picture-in-picture for iOS is listed together of the capabilities these YouTube users can access. The experimental option makes it possible for YouTube Premium users to access and test new features before they’re released for everybody, including non-Premium users.
According to YouTube, the feature are often used in an equivalent way as on Android: while watching a video within the app, swipe up or press the house button to shut the app. The video will automatically shrink right down to a little window within the corner of the screen, allowing you to continue watching the content while messaging, playing a game, or anything.
The picture-in-picture mode on iOS will be available to Premium experimental feature users until October 31. After that point, the feature should roll out broadly for everybody on iPhone to utilize, though YouTube hasn’t yet confirmed exactly when free users will be ready to access it. YouTube notes that it’s still performing on the feature at this point, so it’s going to change slightly before launch.
