All iOS 15 devices get Picture-in-Picture functionality on Youtube

Youtube’s premium subscription provides users with a number of additional features, many of which are especially useful on mobile devices. It includes, among other things, the ability to play content with a lock screen and a picture-in-picture function to display content in the thumbnail player while other applications are running.

The latter has been integrated into the standard iOS video player for some time now, which is not the case with Android. Since the feature was only intended for Premium members, it has been disabled for iOS, with the option to enable Premium subscribers through a trial. Beta testing is now at the end of the road, with good news for all iOS users.

At this time, Picture-in-Picture is completely disabled, but only temporarily. at Share on Twitter Youtube announces that the feature will be rolling out to all users using iOS 15 or later, apparently regardless of subscription type. This means that even users without a subscription, or alternatively the Premium Lite variant, get the functionality at no additional cost.

However, users with Android devices don’t seem to be able to enjoy picture-in-picture for free yet, although there are ways to circumvent the Premium requirement. It is not clear why Youtube chose to make the feature free for iOS users or if they plan to make it free for the remaining users in the future.