YouTube picture-in-picture no longer requires YouTube Premium/Red

The change appears to be live in the U.S. right now.

Android Oreo brought a lot of exciting features to our beloved OS, but one of the most interesting/useful was easily picture-in-picture. One of the first apps PiP worked with was YouTube, but ever since Oreo’s release, you’ve needed a YouTube Premium/YouTube Red subscription in order for it to work.

Thankfully, it looks like Google’s reversing its decision here.

According to a growing thread on Reddit, multiple users are reporting that they can use picture-in-picture on YouTube without paying for Premium/Red. The feature appears to only be live in the United States for the time being, and since there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there are still some restrictions that come with it.

Some users have pointed out that not all videos support PiP on a free account, with a message appearing that says “picture-in-picture has been disabled by the content owner.” This blackout seems most common with music videos, and seeing as how Google would prefer you cough up $10 or $12/month for YouTube Music or Premium, that’s not all that surprising.

If you have a free YouTube account, are you able to use picture-in-picture?

Android Oreo

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