YouTube TV is also planning to introduce a few interface changes to make its app easier to use.
What you need to know
- YouTube TV will finally add picture-in-picture support to its iOS app later this year.
- The feature has been available on Android for quite some time now.
- YouTube TV will also widen surround sound support “over the next six months.”
YouTube TV could finally gain a few highly-anticipated features this year. Speaking with The Verge’s editor-in-chief Nilay Patel on The Vergecast, YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan confirmed that picture-in-picture support will be added to the YouTube TV iOS app ” in the next few months.”
The ability to watch YouTube TV while using other apps using picture-in-picture has been available on the best Android phones for a long time now. On iOS, however, the feature is limited to the regular YouTube app currently.
Another highly-requested feature that could reach more YouTube TV users later this year is surround sound support. Even though YouTube TV announced that it was adding Dolby 5.1 surround in June last year, the rollout has been much slower than expected. There are only a limited number of devices that have received surround sound support so far.
Even the Chromecast with Google TV is yet to get the feature. Weirdly, however, Google’s original Chromecast is among the few devices that have received support for surround sound. Mohan said that YouTube TV plans to “widen support” for surround sound over the next six months.
“The rollout of that feature has certainly been a lot slower than I would’ve liked. My hope though is, hopefully over the next six months, you start to see that in a lot more devices out there as they go through their various stages of software upgrade cycles,” he said.
Finally, Mohan revealed that YouTube TV will also get a revamped interface later in the year. The changes will apparently include updates to the library and guide.
YouTube TV
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YouTube TV lets you access over 85 of the most popular live TV channels, including NFL, NBA and MLB networks. You also get unlimited cloud DVR storage and the ability to customize your TV experience with add-ons.