Hulu has once again fully enabled picture-in-picture support (PiP) on iOS, MacRumors reports, which means that a half-watch network TV is again possible for Hulu subscribers on iPhone and iPad devices. Hulu joins a collection of great streaming services that support the feature on iOS, leaving YouTube as the biggest exception.
PiP for iPhones has been enabled for Hulu around the original version of iOS 14, but it was later turned off to “work on some updates to provide the best experience for our viewers,” Hulu said. Now that the feature is back, users can enable PiP mode by starting a show or movie and touching the PiP button to make the video appear in a variable, floating player.
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Hulu joins services like Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max to support PiP. All of these services now also include a dedicated PiP button like Hulu or standard as picture-in-picture when you swipe to the home screen while playing a video.
YouTube remains the weird one. Photo-in-picture is not allowed in Google’s official YouTube app for iOS. Paying for YouTube Premium enables background play, but it only extends to audio on iOS. Google has also from time to time disabled PiP support for the web version of YouTube on iOS. From October 2020, PiP was possible again, although it apparently does not work from today. At this time, only iPhones with the iOS 14.5 beta can do PiP on the web version of YouTube, according to MacRumors.
If you are curious how to configure PiP on your own device, please see The edge guide.