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iOS 9 Picture in Picture Youtube

J

j4m13

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 21, 2013
66
39
Hi Guys,

I updated my iPad Air to iOS 9 as i was desperate to see the PIP as this is something i always wanted for youtube. It looks like the app's need to be updated to support it as Youtube or any other app i could see doesn't seem to support PIP. The one one i can see is Apple's own Video App.
If anyone finds anything else, please let me know!
BTW, iOS 9 runs REALLY slow on my iPad Air 1, it feels at the moment like iOS7 on iPhone 4, i know it will get better. I am a developer so i expect this :p
Thanks.
 
j4m13 said:
Hi Guys,

I updated my iPad Air to iOS 9 as i was desperate to see the PIP as this is something i always wanted for youtube. It looks like the app's need to be updated to support it as Youtube or any other app i could see doesn't seem to support PIP. The one one i can see is Apple's own Video App.
If anyone finds anything else, please let me know!
BTW, iOS 9 runs REALLY slow on my iPad Air 1, it feels at the moment like iOS7 on iPhone 4, i know it will get better. I am a developer so i expect this :p
Thanks.
Click to expand...

I saw in another thread someone said Safari videos will PIP. Makes sense. Also, thanks for the heads up on performance. Makes me second guess testing Beta 1 on my iPad Air.
 
j4m13 said:
Hi Guys,

I updated my iPad Air to iOS 9 as i was desperate to see the PIP as this is something i always wanted for youtube. It looks like the app's need to be updated to support it as Youtube or any other app i could see doesn't seem to support PIP. The one one i can see is Apple's own Video App.
If anyone finds anything else, please let me know!
BTW, iOS 9 runs REALLY slow on my iPad Air 1, it feels at the moment like iOS7 on iPhone 4, i know it will get better. I am a developer so i expect this :p
Thanks.
Click to expand...
I had a similar experience.

I went ahead and reset all settings and my iPad Air is running smooth
 
Isn't PIP a function of the YouTube app itself? I ask because I was using that over a year ago on my Android phone, but it was through the app, not a browser.

Have you tried the app? I am pretty sure PIP works there, and you don't need iOS 9 to do it...
 
SquireSCA said:
Isn't PIP a function of the YouTube app itself? I ask because I was using that over a year ago on my Android phone, but it was through the app, not a browser.

Have you tried the app? I am pretty sure PIP works there, and you don't need iOS 9 to do it...
Click to expand...

It works internally, within the app.. ie. you can PIP a video whilst you scroll/search for another.
But it doesn't permit you to watch a video whilst opening a different app.
That is the function that hopefully iOS9 will facilitate...
Whether the YouTube app will need updating to take advantage of it is another question...
 
BMcCoy said:
It works internally, within the app.. ie. you can PIP a video whilst you scroll/search for another.
But it doesn't permit you to watch a video whilst opening a different app.
That is the function that hopefully iOS9 will facilitate...
Whether the YouTube app will need updating to take advantage of it is another question...
Click to expand...

Ah, so you are more talking about split screen than PiP, right?

I played with that a bit in iOS 9 on my Air 2, and it seemed to work pretty well, similar to how Samsung has been doing it on their phones... But it seems that not every app can use it...

It was nice to see it on the iPad finally, but I had to roll back to 8.3 as the Outlook Web App that I need for my work email, kept crashing every time I tried to open up the app's calendar.

Apart from that, it looked and worked really well.
 
SquireSCA said:
Ah, so you are more talking about split screen than PiP, right?
Click to expand...

No, I'm talking about PIP, as demonstrated during the recent keynote.
The ability to have a small windowed video floating, whilst working in another app, eg. mail.
A comment above suggested this was working only for videos in the videos app, but not YouTube. This is what we are querying.
 
Ahhh, ok... See, I am only recently returned to Apple with my Air 2. I left in the iPhone 3G days and switched to Android and so a lot of things that I have had and enjoy there on my phone, I just sorta take for granted... I am still learning that certain things that I just thought were standard these days, are still not out on Apple...

PiP is part of the split screen that Samsung uses, where you can have multiple apps open and they don't have to be half the screen, you can resize them however you want and move them around... Looks like that will be coming to iOS 9, but I am sure it will be limited to apps that are specifically programmed for that.
 
It works on all videos which use the player thing that iOS uses, and also on apps that have been optimised to work with it. Hoping YouTube does that by the time I get the public beta.
 
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As long as it works on safari, I'm good. I only use safari for watching YouTube since it's far superior than the official app
 
You need both Workflow and Pocket for this:

If you have Workflow installed, add the 'Add to Pocket' workflow, which sends urls from the clipboard to Pocket.

Go to the YouTube app and click 'copy link' in a video you want to watch.

Open Workflow and run 'add to Pocket'.

Open Pocket, play the video and you get the picture-in-picture option.
 
On an iPad then YouTube is the app that makes the most sense for PIP.

I don't want to watch a postage stamp sized Netflix movie or the season premiere of my favorite TV show in a tiny window. But I do want to have my YouTube talking head videos tucked away in the corner of my iPad while I do actual work (or playing games)

So why is there stil no update? YouTube is one of the most used apps on the iPad so how does Google benefit from ignoring users who want to use their product.
 
Last edited:
urkel said:
So why is there stil no update?
Click to expand...

What incentive is there for Google to update YouTube? They make no additional money on updates, but will indeed need to pay developers to do the work.

IMO Apple needs to start taking a firmer stance with popular Apps on the store, and enforcing requirements for certain Apple-created features. At the end of the day, lazy developers make the experience worse for all.
 
I think I had read that Google would not be incorporating PIP into the YouTube app. Their reasoning was that they want users to stay within the app to drive ad revenue.
 
dr.devious said:
I think I had read that Google would not be incorporating PIP into the YouTube app. Their reasoning was that they want users to stay within the app to drive ad revenue.
Click to expand...

Worst excuse ever. It doesn't even make sense. What do ads have to do with videos playing in the background?
 
nj-morris said:
Worst excuse ever. It doesn't even make sense. What do ads have to do with videos playing in the background?
Click to expand...
One of the benefits of subscribing for YouTube Red is that it allows background streaming. Allowing this function in the YouTube app would remove one incentive for signing up for said service.
 
Abazigal said:
One of the benefits of subscribing for YouTube Red is that it allows background streaming. Allowing this function in the YouTube app would remove one incentive for signing up for said service.
Click to expand...
Background audio streaming. Not the same thing.
But I get your point. I think Apple needs to get heavy handed here. Google is extorting users by charging them an asinine price to listen to the videos in the background, instead of supporting the OS features.
 
TurboPGT! said:
Background audio streaming. Not the same thing.
But I get your point. I think Apple needs to get heavy handed here. Google is extorting users by charging them an asinine price to listen to the videos in the background, instead of supporting the OS features.
Click to expand...
Background audio is an optional feature of iOS not a required one. It's Google's right to choose what features they want to enable at what price. We may not like it, but Apple shouldn't be dictating those terms to Google.
 
JTravers said:
Background audio is an optional feature of iOS not a required one. It's Google's right to choose what features they want to enable at what price. We may not like it, but Apple shouldn't be dictating those terms to Google.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think they should. I think if your App plays video on iOS, it needs to support AirPlay, PiP, etc. Personally I think it should conform to Apple's playback UI also.
I see no benefit to allowing developers flexibility in these areas. It only ever hurts the user experience.
 
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