One of the best new features to arrive in Android Oreo was picture-in-picture mode, but it was unfortunate to find out that it had some strings attached with YouTube. In order to use it, you had to have a YouTube Red subscription. Now, though, it seems Google might be dropping that requirement…
First spotted by some Reddit users and some Android Police readers, it looks like Google is testing a way to let users who don’t have a subscription to YouTube Red to start using picture-in-picture mode. It’s unclear exactly what’s triggering this, but quite a few users are reporting the change live on their devices.
Of course, there is still a catch here. Apparently, content owners can opt to disable picture-in-picture playback for users without Red on a video-by-video basis. Right now, it seems music videos are the best example of this, with users noting that PiP simply doesn’t work with those videos.
You’ll still need an Android phone running Android Oreo or above to get this working, but it doesn’t seem live for all just yet, although it does look like there won’t be a regional restriction here either. It’s still important to note as well that this change still restricts background play solely to Red accounts.
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