Picture-in-picture is now available as an experimental feature for YouTube Premium subscribers on iPhone

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iOS 14 Hero Picture In Picture
iOS 14 Hero Picture In Picture (Image credit: Rene Ritchie)

What you need to know

  • Picture-in-picture is now available for YouTube Premium subscribers.
  • The feature is experimental and will need to be turned on manually.
  • It is only available for iPhone at the moment, so iPad users will have to wait.

Picture-in-picture is finally here for YouTube with Apple devices, but there are two big caveats.

As spotted by 9to5Google, Google has enabled picture-in-picture for the YouTube app. However, the feature is currently only available to YouTube Premium subscribers. It is also an experimental feature, so you will have to manually enable it in order for it to work.

At this time, the feature is also only enabled for iOS, so iPad users are still out of luck. However, if you are a YouTube Premium subscriber and have an iPhone, you can actually start to enjoy using PiP with YouTube.

Below are instructions on how to enable Picture-in-picture on the iPhone right now. Keep in mind, it is still an experimental feature and is only available to YouTube Premium subscribers:

  1. Visit YouTube.com/new while signed in to your Google Account
  2. Find "Picture-in-picture on iOS"
  3. Click "Try it out"
  4. Start a video on YouTube for iPhone app
  5. Start Picture-in-Picture by close the app (Swipe up or home button)

Youtube Picture In Picture Experiment

Youtube Picture In Picture Experiment (Image credit: 9to5Google)

Thankfully, picture-in-picture won't be an experimental or premium-only feature for long. Back in July, the company announced that, while the feature will come to YouTube Premium subscribers first, it will be available to all iOS users eventually.

Picture-in-Picture (PiP) allows users to watch YouTube videos in a small mini player while simultaneously browsing outside of the YouTube app on their mobile device. We're starting to roll out PiP for YouTube Premium members on iOS and plan to launch PiP for all US iOS users as well.

Now that the feature is starting to make its way to YouTube Premium subscribers, the rest of YouTube users will hopefully not be too far behind.

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.