In this tutorial we will tell you about a workaround that lets you watch YouTube videos in iOS 14’s Picture-in-Picture mode after YouTube has blocked the feature on its website.
As you might have already expected YouTube has blocked iOS 14’s Picture-in-Picture Mode from its mobile website. So now if you access YouTube.com on iPhone Safari and exit the app while the video is playing in full screen, the video will stop playing and disappear, instead of playing in the new Picture-in-Picture mode as expected.
While this is annoying the good news is there’s a workaround that still lets you enjoy YouTube videos in iPhone’s new Picture-in-Picture mode. The YouTube trick involves requesting the desktop version of YouTube’s website instead of the normal mobile version that you get on the iPhone.
Once the desktop version of the site is requested you can play any video in full screen and exit the Safari app. With this YouTube trick video will continue to play in the background in the Picture-in-Picture mode while you can continue to use other apps on iPhone.
In the second part of this article you will learn to play YouTube audio while iPhone is locked on iOS 14 or later.
How To Play YouTube Videos In iOS 14 Picture-in-Picture mode
- Launch Safari and open YouTube.com.
- Search for the video that you want to watch in picture-in-picture mode and open its web page.
- Now tap on the ‘aA’ button that is located on left side of the address bar and then tap on ‘Request Desktop Website’.
- Let the desktop version of the website load and then play the video in full screen mode.
- Once the video is playing in full screen simply exit Safari by pressing the home button or swiping up.
As you exit the video will continue to play in Picture-in-Picture mode. You can then launch any app and keep enjoying the video.
Play YouTube Audio While iPhone Is Locked On iOS 14 or later
If you want to listen to YouTube audio in the background while your iPhone is locked, then you can do the following:
- Press the sleep/lock button in order to lock the device. At this point audio will stop.
- Wake you iPhone’s screen and from the lockscreen music widget press the play button in order to restart the playback.
There you go folks, this is the YouTube trick to watch videos in iOS 14’s Picture-In-Picture mode. If you have any questions, then let us know in the comments section below.
