Now, in addition to listening to YouTube videos in the background, YouTube Premium subscribers on iOS will be able to access a picture-in-picture viewing option.
Picture-in-picture yields a tiny, box-shaped mini-player on mobile screens, enabling users to continue watching YouTube videos while doing other things on their iPhones. (The option is not available on iPads, reports 9 To 5 Google).
Picture-in-picture is currently available as an opt-in test exclusively for Premium subscribers, given that one of the perks of membership is the ability to test out experimental features. That said, YouTube has supported picture-in-picture viewing on Android devices since 2018, Techcrunch notes, and back in June said it would eventually be rolling out picture-in-picture to all users.
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In order to access the test, Premium subscribers need only navigate to YouTube.com/new, and manually enabling the option. While watching a video, viewers can either swipe up or press home to close the app and continue to watch in a mini-player. The player has rewind, play, pause, and fast forward controls, notes 9 To 5 Google, and it can be moved around the screen or enlarged or minimized with pinching gestures.
The test appears to have a definitive end date of Oct. 31, though it is unclear whether picture-in-picture will become available to all iPhone users at that juncture.
