Watching YouTube Videos While Using Other Apps

When Apple introduced iOS 9 for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch it also revealed a new way of interacting with applications: multitasking.

With iOS multitasking users can open several applications at the same time , and even watch videos in overlay while performing other actions.

The functionality for watching videos while using other apps in the background is called Picture-in-Picture . By minimizing the video it becomes a small window that can be resized and positioned, and remains in the foreground no matter what.

But Picture-in-Picture doesn’t support all App Store applications, and YouTube is one of them. However, it is possible to activate Picture-in-Picture for all YouTube videos .

Here are three interesting options for using other applications while watching YouTube videos. You’ll see how easy it is!

Option 1:

Fortunately, YouTube received support for Split View, one of the star features of iOS multitasking. To activate Split View, you need an iPad Mini 4, an iPad Air 2, or an iPad Pro.

Activating Split View on YouTube is easy. Simply open the app you want to use while playing a video, then slide your finger from the right side of the iPad (in either the horizontal or vertical position) to activate Slide Over and select YouTube. Finally, redirect the split bar in both apps to the center to enjoy Split View.

This way you can interact with YouTube and any other application that supports this feature at the same time – ideal for surfing the web, chatting, or visiting social networks!

Option 2:

Another alternative option to Split View, as we announced at the beginning of this article, is to use the Picture-in-Picture functionality. Since YouTube does not support PiP in iOS, you will need to download the PipTube app.

Once you have installed the app, you can add its Widget to the Notification Center or its Home Screen panel. From then on, every time you copy the link of a YouTube video you can activate Picture-in-Picture by clicking on the Widget.

Option 3:

Finally, you can activate the Picture-in-Picture function in YouTube videos by copying the video link and pasting it into this website: YouTube PiP. Obviously, you’ll need to do this from an iPad that supports this multitasking feature.

As if by magic, the video will open in a different format than YouTube uses so you can click on the new Picture-in-Picture button.