YouTube’s picture-in-picture mode is becoming available to more iPhone and iPad users

Google has announced that YouTube’s picture-in-picture mode for iOS and iPadOS, which lets you watch videos in a floating window while using other apps, is becoming available to more people. According to a community post on Monday, people running iOS 15 should start seeing the feature soon, though its availability is somewhat lacking.

YouTube Premium subscribers should have access to this feature no matter where in the world they live — as long as it’s an area where you can actually get YouTube Premium — and they can use it for any type of viewing. Can subject. For non-paying YouTube users, YouTube only mentions that picture-in-picture is available in the US. Within the US, however, the company says that “everyone using the YouTube app on iPhone and iPad” will get the feature, but it will only be usable for “non-music content.” If you use Android, you’ve probably had this feature for years, and YouTube says nothing is changing about it today.

This news may be a bit confusing for some premium customers (like me) who are able to use the picture-in-picture mode in a variety of ways. In June 2021, the company said the feature was making its way into apps for paying customers and planned to bring picture-in-picture to its free users as well. As of August, it was available as an experimental feature that premium customers could enable. Then, in April 2022, YouTube ended this experiment, leaving users no longer able to sign up to use the feature. those days, the company said It will have more details to share on the feature “soon”.

All I have to say is that it’s been a bumpy road to getting this announcement today (though, again, some of us enabled it last year and have been using it ever since). YouTube acknowledges that in its tweets and blog post, saying that it recognizes that it has been a “slow roll out for a highly requested feature.” The company has also given itself some time to take some time for this phase – its tweet says the feature is “gradually rolling out”, though its blog post is a bit more specific, saying it should arrive “over the next several days”.

To see if you have access to the feature, go to the YouTube app, try playing a video, and then quit the YouTube app to go to your home screen or another app. If picture-in-picture is enabled for your account, the video should automatically pop out in a floating window. You can also check the feature by tapping your profile picture in the top right of the YouTube app Adjustment , GeneralAnd checking the toggle labeled “Picture-in-Picture”.