YouTube now allows users to select the picture-in-picture feature on iOS. The feature has been available for most video-based applications on iOS for quite some time now, but it has only just arrived for YouTube.
To use the feature users must visit YouTube.com/new while logged in. Then go to the “Picture-in-picture on iOS” experiment and select “Try it out” – this will activate the feature on your account.
The next time you play a video from the YouTube application and swipe up out of the app, the video will continue to play in picture-in-picture mode. The video can also be controlled from the Lock Screen.
The feature is only available until October the 31st (2021). It is unclear why there is a deadline for using this feature, but it seems this may just be a test before rolling out the feature later on to all users. YouTube originally announced the feature would be coming to iOS back in June. The only major catch is: you need a YouTube Premium subscription, at least until the wider rollout after the 31st of October.