Screenshot: David Murphy
Picture-in-picture mode is officially pertaining to iOS 14, however the one app youll wish to utilize it with is a little late to the game. YouTube is rolling out assistance for picture-in-picture mode right now, so you probably wont have the ability to attempt the function even with the iOS 14 public beta on your iPhone unless you rely on a few creative hacks.
Thems the breaks. And I feel you there; Ive been running the iOS 14 beta for months and I still cant run YouTube in picture-in-picture mode– at least, not utilizing the YouTube app. Theres a simple workaround you can use to get picture-in-picture gain access to on iOS 14 right now. Its not ideal, but its the best youll be able to do until YouTube presents this function to everybody.
To try it out on iOS 14, all you have to do is bring up YouTubes main website in Safari. Tap your way through to play a video, and then embiggen it to full screen mode using the little square icon in the lower-right corner.
Screenshot: David Murphy
And I feel you there; Ive been running the iOS 14 beta for months and I still cant run YouTube in picture-in-picture mode– at least, not using the YouTube app. Theres a basic workaround you can utilize to get picture-in-picture access on iOS 14 right now. It works with any video on YouTube, including all of the services music videos. Thats various than the native picture-in-picture setup Android users get in the YouTube app, which forbids picture-in-picture for musical material unless youve subscribed to YouTube Premium.
I mention that since its uncertain whether using picture-in-picture mode within the iOS YouTube app (once its provided) will be similarly restricted. Google has a lot more control over Android than iOS, and its possible that Apples APIs will require all YouTube content to be dealt with similarly– if you can play it within the app, you must have the ability to see it photo in picture.
Otherwise, the only other method Ive found to use picture-in-picture mode within the iOS 14 YouTube app is to make use of a third-party workaround that drops a faster way in your Share Sheet to a hacked-together picture-in-picture mode. I have not attempted it myself, but its worth spending some time to explore if you simply need to have picture-in-picture mode today and dont want to open up a web browser window to get it.
Your video will shrink to picture-in-picture size, and you can now swipe out of the YouTube viewer and do whatever else you wish to do on your iPhone (or iPad). You can move the video around on your screen as needed, though youll just have the ability to stick it to the four corners of your gadget (alas).
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As soon as youve done that, try to find the picture-in-picture icon, which looks like one huge window indicating a smaller sized window. You cant miss it. (Its to the right of the giant “X.”).
Screenshot: David Murphy.
If Safari isnt your browser of choice, youll be thrilled to know that this trick works in Chrome and Firefox, too– through precisely the exact same directions. It deals with any video on YouTube, consisting of all of the services video. Thats various than the native picture-in-picture setup Android users get in the YouTube app, which prohibits picture-in-picture for musical material unless youve signed up for YouTube Premium.
Screenshot: David Murphy.
