YouTube TV is finally getting picture-in-picture on iPhone and iPad

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YouTube TV on iPhone
YouTube TV on iPhone (Image credit: Bryan M. Wolfe/iMore)

What you need to know

  • YouTube TV will soon get support for picture-in-picture (PiP) on iPhone and iPad.
  • PiP mode will allow people to watch content and do other things on their devices at the same time.
  • PiP support should be available within months.

YouTube TV is finally getting support for picture-in-picture (PiP) on iPhone and iPad according to YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan.

The move, which long-suffering YouTube TV users would argue is long overdue, will allow iPhone and iPad users to watch content in a window while going about their business in other apps like Twitter and more.

In an interview with The Verge, Mohan said that there is hope that PiP support will come to iOS "in the next few months" but no hard release window was given beyond that.

Mohan also outed more improvements are coming including better support for surround sound.

During a lightning round of feature requests during the tail end of the show, Mohan also confirmed a handful of other support news exclusively to The Verge. YouTube TV announced support for surround sound last summer, but the rollout has been fairly limited on devices and TVs. (It isn't even supported on Google's own Chromecast with Google TV devices yet, which is wild.) Mohan attributed the slow feature rollout to software support and software upgrades, but added that YouTube TV could widen support over the next six months.

YouTube TV allows people to watch streaming content on a variety of devices via their internet connection with a lineup that includes CNN, TNT, TBS, and Turner Classic Movies. You can read all about the service, and the content it offers, in our YouTube TV guide.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.