YouTube Says iOS Picture-in-Picture Coming to All Users 'in a Matter of Days' [Updated]

[BradWI]

I really wish my content creators would just move off of this platform already. For premium subscribers I *almost* understand.....and then they go on and say it's Android only, despite it working fine on iOS. And the thing about my content that I watch, it's ONLY available on YouTube and it has pretty much become my TV Replacement. A lot of tutorials etc are only on YouTube. Ugh.

Youtube is likely the most creator-friendly of all the major social media platforms. "Your" creators won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Pay for Premium and the creators you watch will get significantly more revenue than they would from you watching ads.

Or use an ad blocker but don't pretend to care about those creators who make those tutorials you watch.

 

[dontwalkhand]

Youtube is likely the most creator-friendly of all the major social media platforms. "Your" creators won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Pay for Premium and the creators you watch will get significantly more revenue than they would from you watching ads.

Or use an ad blocker but don't pretend to care about those creators who make those tutorials you watch.

I have Premium, I at least expect PiP to be available like it has been for months. They then go back and take it away and say it's android only. This has nothing to do with the creators, rathe the ****** service that they chose to use. Ad blocker is fine and dandy until you are trying to watch from an iPhone or iPad and it still doesn't solve the PiP issue.

 

[nihilisten]

Standard feature for Samsung Galaxy fold users

great but googles reluctancy to add this to ios wont make me buy a worse device with an unsecure opreratingsystem sorry.

 

[dontwalkhand]

great but googles reluctancy to add this to ios wont make me buy a worse device with an unsecure opreratingsystem sorry.

At this point I would rather just forego YouTube than ever have to deal with Android, and gimmicky folding phones.

 

[Rogifan]

Sorry I don’t. All I use is the Brave browser on iOS. While watching any YouTube a button will appear in the URL bar for downloading. Then Brave saves it to a playlist where you can rearrange them, create folders etc.

This also allows playing music in the background, playing the video/audio while the phone is locked.

Ah ok. Yeah I’m looking for something where I can download the video. I do that for videos where it’s likely the YouTube police will come and take it down.

 

[xxray]

What a joke.

 

[jhollington]

It is a standard feature.

What Apple does is make exceptions for major players who break the rules. Holding PiP hostage behind a paywall is absolutely against the App Store TOS and Apple allows it because it is YouTube.

I think a lot of people misunderstand the rules around this... There's a fine line that many developers walk, but Apple has long allowed core hardware and OS functionality to be unlocked via IAP as long as it's not the only thing being unlocked. The idea is that a developer can't just blatantly make money off Apple's work.

Here's the relevant portion of the App Store review guidelines:

Monetizing built-in capabilities provided by the hardware or operating system, such as Push Notifications, the camera, or the gyroscope; or Apple services, such as Apple Music access or iCloud storage.

However, lots of third-party apps do this, even from many smaller developers, so Google isn't getting any special treatment here. This has also been the norm for years. Push Notifications were a very common one in the early days — dozens of apps charged for this, but they did so indirectly. The key rule was that it was fine to enable Push Notifications as part of a paid tier as long as that tier included other stuff; developers simply couldn't charge a payment or subscription solely to enable a feature that Apple had already provided.

YouTube Premium easily falls within these rules, as it's a long-standing subscription plan that provides a lot more than just PiP. Folks made the same argument when Google locked background audio support behind YouTube Premium in iOS 4, but it was the same situation back then. Google wasn't charging to unlock background audio, it was simply doing so as part of a paid tier that offered ad-free listening and other benefits.

Not that I agree with what Google is doing here — I think it's patently absurd that it's taken it almost seven years to support a feature that Apple introduced in iOS 9. I chuckle these days when I think about how many folks used the word "finally" when Netflix added PiP support in June 2016.

 

[akeita]

Yeah buddy.

For me personally, in the gym, I can now minimize the display and search my next song either on Apple Music or Amazon music, if I’m listening to a song from YouTube when working out.

I have been running YouTube on Chrome on my iPhone / iPad to get PiP. Some claim you can do the same in Safari but for some reason I haven't had much success.

 

[NervousFish2]

HURRAH!!!

 

[Macative]

I think a lot of people misunderstand the rules around this... There's a fine line that many developers walk, but Apple has long allowed core hardware and OS functionality to be unlocked via IAP as long as it's not the only thing being unlocked. The idea is that a developer can't just blatantly make money off Apple's work.

Here's the relevant portion of the App Store review guidelines:



However, lots of third-party apps do this, even from many smaller developers, so Google isn't getting any special treatment here. This has also been the norm for years. Push Notifications were a very common one in the early days — dozens of apps charged for this, but they did so indirectly. The key rule was that it was fine to enable Push Notifications as part of a paid tier as long as that tier included other stuff; developers simply couldn't charge a payment or subscription solely to enable a feature that Apple had already provided.

YouTube Premium easily falls within these rules, as it's a long-standing subscription plan that provides a lot more than just PiP. Folks made the same argument when Google locked background audio support behind YouTube Premium in iOS 4, but it was the same situation back then. Google wasn't charging to unlock background audio, it was simply doing so as part of a paid tier that offered ad-free listening and other benefits.

Not that I agree with what Google is doing here — I think it's patently absurd that it's taken it almost seven years to support a feature that Apple introduced in iOS 9. I chuckle these days when I think about how many folks used the word "finally" when Netflix added PiP support in June 2016.

There is no exception in the App Store rules that says, "You can't do this, but if you bundle other things with it, then you can."

No. Flat out, no. This is nothing other than Apple letting another big player slide on the rules like they have done 100 other times.

 

[Macative]

The YouTube app doesn’t use the standard iOS video player.
Not that That’s an excuse for Google, picture in pictures should’ve been implemented two years ago, but it should be noted

Another problem that Apple has created by allowing video playback apps to use anything other than the built-in player.

 

[ja']

I wonder if the delay in putting this feature out is due to ads.

this is 100% the reason ?

 

[msackey]

Oh, so this was just for YouTube TV and not YouTube? Who knew!? Kinda crazy.

 

[BeefCake 15]

I chuckled at the update.....

 

[MacFan23]

It's my opinion. Maybe not yours or others, just saying if YT ended tomorrow, the world wouldn't end. It might actually become more productive with people finding they have extra hours (many) to do something.

With all due respect, this is an incredibly ignorant take.

As someone else has mentioned, YouTube is a great resource for learning especially in less developed worlds where there is less access to teaching and for those who can’t afford formal education. It’s also a better approach for some.

Besides that’s, it’s a great tool for spreading news, it’s a great medium for sharing stories, creative expression and there’s a lot of worthwhile, well produced and informational content available for free as well as the entertainment aspect.

 

[paulovsouza]

YouTube if you’re running out of ideas just say so. No one is paying for YouTube just for PiP. Just implement the improvements your users have been asking for, for years. It’s getting harder to stay on the YouTube app, especially since the majority of the time I’m on my phone (as are most users). The ad revenue they’d get, especially if they forced you to watch the ad through PiP would be more than the $15 they’re asking for.

 

[jhollington]

There is no exception in the App Store rules that says, "You can't do this, but if you bundle other things with it, then you can."

No. Flat out, no. This is nothing other than Apple letting another big player slide on the rules like they have done 100 other times.

The rule prohibits "monetizing built-in capabilities." I have spoken with many developers over the years, and even some folks at Apple about this from back in the days when the rule was first put into place. It's about preventing developers from trying to simply "cash in" by unlocking what Apple has already provided.

YouTube Premium isn't an "exception" to the rule. The rule doesn't apply in this case, because Google is not "monetizing" picture-in-picture. That is to say, they are not making money from that feature. That's what the rule is about — Apple doesn't want developers profiting from features that are supposed to be available as part of the iPhone or iOS. However, as others in this conversation have said, nobody is paying for YouTube Premium just to get PiP.

Similarly, there are many apps that only allow access to Push Notifications to those who subscribe to a paid tier. Push Notifications are specifically mentioned in the rule as something you can't charge for, and people complained about this over a decade ago when Apple introduced Push Notifications in "iOS" 3.0 (or "iPhone Software Update" as it was called back then), and apps began unlocking Push Notifications with in-app purchases. However, as long as the developers weren't charging only for Push Notifications, they were fine. In most cases, they were charging for the information behind the push notifications — things like "breaking news alerts," or "instant weather alerts."

Popular apps like Carrot Weather, Todoist, and Apollo all come to mind off the top of my head as apps that only provide push notifications to paying subscribers. In fact, Apollo is a perfect example of how Apple's rule works — it was originally rejected by the App Store Review team until the developer added themes and icons to the subscription to make it about more than just the notifications.

Again, I'm not trying to give Google a pass here, and I'll be the first to call Apple out for those places where it has let the big players slide by, or created special side deals. It's just that this isn't one of them; YouTube is a visible app that's doing this, so it gets a lot more attention (and well-deserved frustration for how stupid the whole situation is), but it's not hard to find hundreds of apps that only make "built-in capabilities" available to paying subscribers — it's just that those capabilities are inherently tied to other things that come with that paid tier.

 

[ColdShadow]

I can't believe it's still not on iOs.
it's so useful and lack of it just makes no sense it's been available on Samsung Galaxy Note for almost over a decade..

 

[Leshita]

Occasionally mine works on my iPhone SE, but it seems totally random and I do not know why.
Ironically on my sister's iPad mini 2 that cannot be updated anymore, the PiP works flawlessly.

 

[techfreak23]

I hope they do the same for the web version. I will never go back to the app. There's no way I'm losing my ad blocker. I would honestly give them money if they had a $3-5 tier that only removed ads. It's been ridiculous that they block PiP on the web version when there is no reason to do so. It originally worked when Apple first released the feature in beta, but YouTube disabled it after public launch. I have a Siri shortcut to force the video into PiP, but it's annoying having to go into the Share Sheet to run it.

 

[Bawstun]

Ah ok. Yeah I’m looking for something where I can download the video. I do that for videos where it’s likely the YouTube police will come and take it down.

Well it downloads them to the iOS device. They are stored in the Brave browser unless you move the files into other apps through the Files app or by selecting the video and tapping move/share/open in etc.

 

[bn-7bc]

Good move YT , now can you plz populate the cummuneety tab in the ioados app, or remive it complitly in its cuttent state it's useless

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Another problem that Apple has created by allowing video playback apps to use anything other than the built-in player.

If they didn’t, then Google would be complaining that they’re being “anti-competitive.”
And the last thing Apple needs is *another* company against them.

 

[The Game 161]

still working fine for me though. so if the trial has ended it's not stopped working

 

[femike]

I deleted the YouTube app. I use Safari to use YouTube now, it just a better experience. Also its easier to play audio only with locked screen with no YouTube subscription (this should be a standard OS feature). And no annoying open in YouTube app banner.