YouTube removes Picture in Picture support from their website on iOS

[The1Dickens]

Is this because iOS users are not using the mobile app?

[DrMacintosh]

While this is true, iOS users on iPad or iPhone can simply request the desktop website in Safari (default behavior for iPadOS) and still retain the PiP functionality. 

[Zodiark1593]

24 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

While this is true, iOS users on iPad or iPhone can simply request the desktop website in Safari (default behavior for iPadOS) and still retain the PiP functionality. 

Pretty much what I said earlier. No telling if Google can figure out how to put a stop to it though. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Pretty much what I said earlier. No telling if Google can figure out how to put a stop to it though. 

I think if they could or cared about it that much they would have done it when iPadOS initially came out, since it’s always had PiP. 

[Zodiark1593]

31 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I think if they could or cared about it that much they would have done it when iPadOS initially came out, since it’s always had PiP. 

They took the time to block it off on mobile sites. I think part of this will depend on how Apple had implemented PiP for web pages. With the mobile site, YouTube definitely knows the client device is a mobile device, and can probably execute inputs to exit the mode automatically (as what appears to be happening, PiP starts then suddenly exits). It looks like the video gets loaded into a web player internal to Safari, as YouTube’s normal controls aren’t present in full screen.

Given the limited number of resolutions available to iOS, I wonder if YouTube detects the resizing and forcibly restarts the web player in response to resizing specific for PiP. 

 

If Safari’s desktop mode prevents YouTube from detecting the client device as a mobile device at all, implementing specific code into the supposedly more flexible desktop site can inadvertently impact other use cases. In respect to resizing, desktops have a much wider array of different resolutions, and scaling settings that would all need to function. If YouTube is using scaling to detect PiP, then countermeasures won’t be effective for the desktop site without side effects for everyone else. 
 

It looks line one may be able to set certain sites to default to desktop mode in Safari, though I’m not certain. 

[DrMacintosh]

11 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

If Safari’s desktop mode prevents YouTube from detecting the client device as a mobile device at all, implementing specific code into the supposedly more flexible desktop site can inadvertently impact other use cases.

That’s precisely what I was thinking. I was just on the can and didn’t feel like typing that  

[Drazil100]

4 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

If Safari’s desktop mode prevents YouTube from detecting the client device as a mobile device at all, implementing specific code into the supposedly more flexible desktop site can inadvertently impact other use cases. In respect to resizing, desktops have a much wider array of different resolutions, and scaling settings that would all need to function. If YouTube is using scaling to detect PiP, then countermeasures won’t be effective for the desktop site without side effects for everyone else. 

I hadn’t thought of that. It would probably be a bit harder to block on the desktop version of the site. Then again I don’t exactly know how they detected it in the first place. 
 

However they detected it though I probably shouldn’t be super worried cause they allow PiP on the desktop. I wonder though if they do end up blocking PiP on the desktop version of the site if it would also break in chrome. 
 

Either way the 2 additional clicks blocking it in the mobile version of the site adds is annoying. 

[saltycaramel]

There’s a shortcut on reddit (Youtube PiP v3) that leverages Scriptable to automate doing PiP straight from the Youtube app on iOS.

 

With slight modifications you can also make it work from a link in the clipboard and make it escape to the home screen when it’s finished.

 

(just saying, for those unaware, of course that’s not a mainstream solution, but that’s what a flexible OS that has power user automation tools like Shortcuts, Scriptable, Pythonista, etc. affords you)

[Drazil100]

39 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

There’s a shortcut on reddit (Youtube PiP v3) that leverages Scriptable to automate doing PiP straight from the Youtube app on iOS.

 

With slight modifications you can also make it work from a link in the clipboard and make it escape to the home screen when it’s finished.

 

(just saying, for those unaware, of course that’s not a mainstream solution, but that’s what a flexible OS that has power user automation tools like Shortcuts, Scriptable, Pythonista, etc. affords you)

I love shortcuts. Have been using it to open YouTube links in chrome but I’ll have to check out the better solution. Thanks for the info. 

[saltycaramel]

NP. Personally I modified that particular shortcut to just take the youtube link from the clipboard instead of the share sheet, because I’m annoyed by the 2-step (“More..”) process to access the full share sheet from the youtube app. So I just do “Share” -> “Copy link”. Then I start the shortcut by double tapping the back of the iPhone (accessibility feature). Seconds later I’m in PiP on the home screen. 

[vorticalbox]

On 9/18/2020 at 10:23 PM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

And yet people make a huge fuss when Microsoft is pushing for Edge on Windows devices.  It's not like Microsoft is going out of their way and actively breaking or gimping other web-browsers. 

They didn't brake a website but they did change your default browser to edge, pinned it to the task bar and then then popped up a window to set up Edge that you couldn't close without completing it.

 

Which I would say is worse. If Microsoft had ebough Web control to break websites to for the use of Edge (before the chrom move) they would have absolutely have done it.

[Zodiark1593]

On 9/19/2020 at 4:19 PM, DrMacintosh said:

That’s precisely what I was thinking. I was just on the can and didn’t feel like typing that  

It no longer works on the desktop website. Those little expletives borked the desktop site too. I really, really want Youtube to go die now. 
 

Edit: Any chance this could be brought up in the Wan show?

[DrMacintosh]

20 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

It no longer works on the desktop website. Those little expletives borked the desktop site too. I really, really want Youtube to go die now. 
 

Edit: Any chance this could be brought up in the Wan show?

Really? Seems to be working for me. At least on iPadOS 14

[Bombastinator]

Weird thing.  I updated my 7+ to 14, and I am seeing what I actually see referred to as Picture in Picture.  Maybe I had it turned off before any the update flipped a switch or something but I do have it now whereas I didn’t before.  It’s actually kind of annoying.  I want to turn it off again.  It’s definitely wonky though.  Works for some videos but not others and sometimes if I have the phone “upright” the video will play center screen (like it used to) and sometimes it will play at the top.  There’s definitely something up.  Not sure what though.

[Zodiark1593]

48 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Really? Seems to be working for me. At least on iPadOS 14

PiP just closes right out exactly how the Mobile website does. 

[DrMacintosh]

39 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

PiP just closes right out exactly how the Mobile website does. 

IMG_1752.MOV

Yeah, must be that iPhone Safari does not have all the same knobs and levers pulled that iPadOS Safari does. 

[Bombastinator]

So 3 different is version examples one is working fine one claims problems and I don’t know if the phone iOS is acting right or not

[Mark Kaine]

It's crazy something basic like this is a "premium feature". TVs in the 90s had PiP.

[Bombastinator]

40 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

It's crazy something basic like this is a "premium feature". TVs in the 90s had PiP.

Premium TVs in the 90’s did.  Back then it was Sony trinitron and not even all of them.  It was a totally different technology though.  It effectively put multiple TV tuners in a single tv.   It is a 30 year old tech though.  These days it’s radically easier to do and the code is already in place. Someone mentioned earlier that removal of YouTube features from windows phoneOS contributed to its destruction.   The oddity though is I’m not seeing it.  I’ve got iOS14 on a 7+ and it’s still there.  There are weirdnesses with it though.

[Drazil100]

3 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

It effectively put multiple TV tuners in a single tv.

At least you are paying for something there.

[Video Beagle]

On 9/24/2020 at 8:33 PM, Bombastinator said:

Weird thing.  I updated my 7+ to 14, and I am seeing what I actually see referred to as Picture in Picture. 

the new TVos just added that as a feature...might be realted?