Some Free Users Internationally Can Now Minimize YouTube
Picture-in-picture mode on YouTube allows you to minimize whatever you’re watching to a small rectangle on your screen so that you can do other things on your phone and still watch the video playing. Unfortunately, this feature was Premium-exclusive for a long time. Eventually, Google extended the privilege of PiP to free users, but only in the United States.
The good news is that it looks like a global rollout of PiP is upon us. An editor at Android Police noticed it, along with several European users on Reddit who have noticed the functionality suddenly.
Of course, this is pretty great for free users on YouTube, as it is one of the most glaring reasons to get Premium (besides being eternally free of those recurrent ads). Hopefully, the rollout will continue at full speed in the next weeks, and potentially spread to other regions besides Europe.
Is There Still A Point In Getting YouTube Premium?
Now that the big devs at Google have trickled the picture-in-picture feature down to users on the free tier of YouTube, you might be wondering whether there’s still any reason for you to spend your hard-earned money to get YouTube Premium.
The answer to that is a huge yes. I’ve been using YouTube Premium for a long time now and I don’t regret it a single bit, because it improves my viewing experience in more ways than one. Here are some of the reasons why you should consider getting Premium (even with picture-in-picture out of the picture):
- The biggest reason to get YouTube Premium, in my opinion, is that you get no more ads. That’s right: tap a video and it starts right away and plays to the end, without a single interruption.
- You can download videos to the YouTube app to watch them later when you’re not online.
- You also get a YouTube Music Premium membership bundled in YouTube Premium, which works the same as other music streaming apps.
Of course, for international users who are yet to get free picture-in-picture support, you may still want to add that to the list of reasons to hop on a Premium plan.
How Much Does YouTube Premium Cost?
It depends on the region you live in, as pricing is dependent on what is considered to be a sensible price on a case-by-case basis. For me, it’s a lot cheaper than it would be in the United States after a direct conversion.
For YouTube Premium in the United States though, you’ll be paying $13.99 each month for an individual plan on Android, though a family plan for up to six people costs $22.99.
