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YouTube Premium Subscribers Can Now Use iOS Picture-in-Picture: Here's How

Works great! Glad I saw this article, would have passed me by for a while otherwise, given you have to activate it.

Yeah yeah, pity you have to pay for the privilege (with the app), but I probably get more value from my YT Premium sub than any other. I’ve dabbled with using the browser in the past, the annoyances outweigh the positives for me. On iOS anyway.
 
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They take a feature someone else developed and ask you for money to get it back.
Is that like a ransom request? Do they want to be paid with bricks of small bills in a briefcase too?
 
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Wait what?!? I’ve been doing pip with Firefox for a long time and I have no subscription. :rolleyes:
 
cambookpro said:
Does this not fall foul of developer guideline 3.2.2(ii)?

“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.”

Or do Apple’s rules only apply to smaller developers…
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I came in here to post exactly this. This is the reason PiP was never implemented into YouTube’s App. Apple does not allow Apps to discriminate in the implementation of Apples built-in features or by selling it to users.

YouTube must activate PiP for all YouTube App users or none at all, according to Apples guidelines. Keeping an Apple-created OS feature behind a paywall is a violation and if it’s the case then Apple must take action like they did with Epic.

Edit: YouTube are cleverly evading the above scenario by implementing it for testing under the guise of “experimental features” and have limited the run till the end of October. I wouldn’t be surprised if they “extend” this experimentation perpetually to give paying users exclusive access or at the least a few-month headstart on access to the feature, similar in nature to how Fortnite remained in “beta” for its first few years on PlayStation to evade the PS Plus internet service subscription requirement.

I hope Apple implements a hard cap on the time they can “experiment” with this feature for paying YouTube customers only, because by doing this they have essentially placed an operating system feature behind their paywall.

3E5BEDE9-09AA-4F06-B9A6-38C7F0B270B9.jpeg
 
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Come on... Apple shouldn't allow this.

PiP is a system-level feature that Apple developed for iOS & macOS. Other companies should not be pay-walling iOS features...

This is similar to how phone carriers are allowed to disable the personal hotspot feature on iPhones.
 
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tomtad said:
Apple should just refuse any app to the App Store if it doesn't implement PiP. Having to pay for YouTube Premium for what is a system level feature is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

You are paying for not having ads as well. It’s google app they can do what they want sadly
 
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It doesn’t work if you’re trying to watch paid content. I have purchased TV series on youtube and as soon as I swipe up, it pauses. Works for all other videos.
 
Archeteo said:
So this is still not available on the YouTube iOS app?

It's also insane how neither the iOS or iPadOS apps support system settings dark mode. For me, anyway. I hate how Google designs their software features and general rollouts.
Click to expand...

It is available in both the iOS app and the browser. I have been using it for months… unless I was one of the chosen to test the feature.

Also, Dark Mode has been available for iPad and iPhone for over a year now.
 
cambookpro said:
Does this not fall foul of developer guideline 3.2.2(ii)?

“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.”

Or do Apple’s rules only apply to smaller developers…
Click to expand...
I hope someone in Apple sees this. That does clearly look like (to me) that they’re flagrantly violating that guideline.
 
Lol. Only works on my iPad. Indeed I’m a paid subscriber and their app is a joke. I remember when they tested this on users in early 2020. Here we are.. still so stupid.
 
cambookpro said:
Does this not fall foul of developer guideline 3.2.2(ii)?

“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.”

Or do Apple’s rules only apply to smaller developers…
Click to expand...
It does not. Apple allows monetizing built-in features if they're bundled with more non-system features as part of the IAP. YouTube Premium has other features like YouTube Music, ad-free playback, downloads, and YouTube Originals. Those are ancillary features that allow system capabilities to be monetized via an IAP or subscription.

You can see this with Apollo, and in fact it's what the App Review team suggested to get the app approved. Back when the developer added push notifications he was planning on releasing a subscription that only included push notifications. Apple rejected this update because it was monetizing built-in capabilities. The Apollo developer discussed the inherent server cost for hosting push notifications with the App Review team and they agreed that it was a good reason to charge for push notifications, but that the way he was doing it at that time was not acceptable. App Review suggested the developer to add other benefits to the subscription like themes or app icons and push notifications and it would get approved. Lo-and-behold, after resubmitting with themes, custom app icons, and push notifications, it was approved.

So no, the rule applies to everyone. You're just not seeing this loophole that App Review accepts until you run into it.

Besides, they already announced this feature is coming to everyone, non-subscribers alike, in the future. They also said that it would be coming to YouTube Premium subscribers first. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/18/youtube-pip-support-rolling-out/

From a previous MacRumors article:

Picture-in-Picture (PiP) allows users to watch YouTube videos in a small mini player while simultaneously browsing outside of the YouTube app on their mobile device. We’re starting to roll out PiP for YouTube Premium members on iOS and plan to launch PiP for all US iOS users as well.
Click to expand...
 
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The Game 161 said:
You are paying for not having ads as well. It’s google app they can do what they want sadly
Click to expand...
That’s fine, it’s just with system level stuff like PiP this should just work.
It’s like YouTube limiting sound to only speakers not headphones if you don’t pay for Premium. And I’d expect Apple to refuse the app if this did this.

PiP should be a requirement for every app that plays video.
 
This is what I wrote in the experimental feedback function:
1629898171491.png


I know this is a first world problem but why PiP gets limited in such an artificial way is beyond me...
 
I had this ability years ago when I had Samsung Galaxy S phones and I didn't have YouTube Premium, I really missed the feature and was wondering why I couldn't figure out how to do it when I switched to iPhone, was this just a thing on Samsung phones?
 
MJaP said:
I had this ability years ago when I had Samsung Galaxy S phones and I didn't have YouTube Premium, I really missed the feature and was wondering why I couldn't figure out how to do it when I switched to iPhone, was this just a thing on Samsung phones?
Click to expand...
Google allows PiP on Android long before iOS.
 
how long does it take, it was working fine before now it pauses when locked, also give us system wide dark mode and optician to alway play is highest quality the app team are usless
 
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