YouTubes website now blocks iOS 14s picture-in-picture mode unless you pay for Premium

One of iOS 14’s big new features is picture-in-picture mode, which lets you watch a video in a small window while you’re doing other things on your iPhone. That could be handy if you, say, wanted to watch a YouTube video in Safari while chatting with your friends or checking email. But unfortunately, it seems YouTube has done something to stop videos from continuing to play when PIP mode is activated — unless you pay for YouTube Premium, that is.

See for yourself. Pull up a video on YouTube’s website in Safari on your iPhone and take it full screen. If you tap to pull up playback controls, you should see a picture-in-picture icon in the top-left corner of your screen. Tap that, and the video briefly goes into its own window before...

Continue reading…