YouTube began officially rolling out the Picture-in-Picture feature in its iOS app in June 2021, and it has been a painfully slow process. A workaround has been provided to Premium subscribers, but now it seems that the platform’s PiP test for iPhone and iPad has already been completed.
The iOS Picture-in-Picture disappeared from youtube.com/new after an end date in early April. Users can no longer sign up to test the experimental functionality, and Google notifies any Premium subscribers trying to access it for the first time that the feature has been disabled. However, the function still works for iPhone and iPad accounts that previously had the test enabled and were actively using PiP. The company says it will continue until these users are enrolled in another trial.
Picture-in-Picture or PiP is a multi-window mode that enables users to watch YouTube videos in a compact sub window pinned to the corner of the screen while they are actively using other applications.
The PiP trial was always a time-limited event geared at YouTube Premium members and meant to collect additional feedback from users on what they thought of the new feature. The test has helped make the functionality seamless and steady enough to continue providing viewers with an excellent viewing experience even when they navigate away from the main app. YouTube says it hopes to make the PiP option available to everyone, premium and non-premium users alike, in the coming months, but no specific date has been given so far.
Were you able to test YouTube’s Picture-in-Picture support? What are your impressions of this functionality? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below, and do not hesitate to share this post with your friends!