Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Can you still play YT in the background with iOS 10? (Try before voting)

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 23.8%
  • No

    Votes: 32 76.2%

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .

alec6542

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 16, 2012
111
2
For the longest time, with iOS you could play youtube audio in the background by pressing the home button after the video starts, swiping up to CC, and pressing play. Now, that doesn't work. For a few days, private browsing in safari fixed the issue, but then that stopped working. So I downloaded Chrome, same problem. Then I downloaded Firefox, worked for 2 days, but now, nothing! This is not an isolated incident; check out this thread from Apple Support forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7734093?start=105&tstart=0

There is no doubt this is intentional to get people to sign up for Youtube Red, but what really is interesting is Google's egregious yet brilliant approach to implementing the removal of this feature: rather than disable it for EVERYONE overnight, they are doing it piecemeal, little by little, disabling it for a few here and there, but not everyone, so as to prevent a backlash and PR nightmare. Think about it, if they did this overnight, there would be a huge backlash, with nasty articles written in the tech press deriding google for this move. Instead, you only see a handful of users complaining, while everyone else seems to be just fine, so it must just be a bug. But I assure you, one day you will wake up and it won't be working for you anymore either. I've tried every solution offered, including private browsing, third party browser, clearing safari history, and one by one, over the span of a few weeks, each solution has stopped working, so I assure you, this is no bug. I just want to get the word out that Google is in fact doing this, and doing it in such a way so that the public as a whole won't even notice, and not a single article is written about it. Yes, it was nice being able to play youtube in the background, but for me the worst part is that I cannot Airplay YT to my ATV and use my phone for anything else anymore. If I am Airplaying a YT video and then the phone goes to sleep, or if I lock the phone, or even press the home button exiting the app, the Airplay stream drops completely.

To gauge what percent of MR users have been affected, I created a poll.
 
  • Like
Reactions: souko

Paddle1

macrumors 603
May 1, 2013
5,149
3,600
For the longest time, with iOS you could play youtube audio in the background by pressing the home button after the video starts, swiping up to CC, and pressing play. Now, that doesn't work. For a few days, private browsing in safari fixed the issue, but then that stopped working. So I downloaded Chrome, same problem. Then I downloaded Firefox, worked for 2 days, but now, nothing! This is not an isolated incident; check out this thread from Apple Support forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7734093?start=105&tstart=0

There is no doubt this is intentional to get people to sign up for Youtube Red, but what really is interesting is Google's egregious yet brilliant approach to implementing the removal of this feature: rather than disable it for EVERYONE overnight, they are doing it piecemeal, little by little, disabling it for a few here and there, but not everyone, so as to prevent a backlash and PR nightmare. Think about it, if they did this overnight, there would be a huge backlash, with nasty articles written in the tech press deriding google for this move. Instead, you only see a handful of users complaining, while everyone else seems to be just fine, so it must just be a bug. But I assure you, one day you will wake up and it won't be working for you anymore either. I've tried every solution offered, including private browsing, third party browser, clearing safari history, and one by one, over the span of a few weeks, each solution has stopped working, so I assure you, this is no bug. I just want to get the word out that Google is in fact doing this, and doing it in such a way so that the public as a whole won't even notice, and not a single article is written about it. Yes, it was nice being able to play youtube in the background, but for me the worst part is that I cannot Airplay YT to my ATV and use my phone for anything else anymore. If I am Airplaying a YT video and then the phone goes to sleep, or if I lock the phone, or even press the home button exiting the app, the Airplay stream drops completely.

To gauge what percent of MR users have been affected, I created a poll.
Yep just tested it, not working. Here's another workaround for background play, instead of a third party browser use a third party "YouTube music player" app. It will circumvent the YouTube website's attempts to block background play.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FyerFyer

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,261
11,763
Or just download each video or music and put them locally so YouTube could do nothing to stop people from playing local contents, unless they push law enforcement departments to ban people from playing stuff that way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LoveToMacRumors

Salvor Hardin

macrumors 6502
Jun 24, 2013
250
242
They seem to be doing some sort of trick to stop playback due to knowing you're using iOS from its's user agent, if you play a video from any site that can embed or loop YouTube videos background play works as usual.

I'd probably have to ask around about this but I wonder if it would be possible to use Safari's content blocker to block the HTML code they're using to do this.
 

cswifx

Suspended
Dec 15, 2016
563
180
It's part of the YouTube policy that you do not use YouTube as a music player for mobile devices. That's why the Play Store doesn't have any 'YouTube background players', while the Apple App Store does. Google's just trying to enforce its policies on the iOS ecosystem, to which I see no problem, because you shouldn't be using YouTube as a music player in the first place.
 

addamas

macrumors 65816
Apr 20, 2016
1,314
1,341
It's part of the YouTube policy that you do not use YouTube as a music player for mobile devices. That's why the Play Store doesn't have any 'YouTube background players', while the Apple App Store does. Google's just trying to enforce its policies on the iOS ecosystem, to which I see no problem, because you shouldn't be using YouTube as a music player in the first place.

They want to use YouTube Red. Glad to be JB and background playing with mikoto tweak...
 

slingshott

macrumors member
Jan 23, 2017
76
38
One thing I never understood with music on YouTube is what Vevo's role is. What do they bring to the table? I totally see where Google are coming from with the background play, the horrible scrubbing means I seldom use it anyway.
 

cswifx

Suspended
Dec 15, 2016
563
180
One thing I never understood with music on YouTube is what Vevo's role is. What do they bring to the table? I totally see where Google are coming from with the background play, the horrible scrubbing means I seldom use it anyway.

Vevo's more a music video place than music. It's the same concept of MTV I guess.
 

Justaguy48

macrumors member
May 2, 2017
64
52
You can stream in the background if you have YouTube red. It's not about crippling YouTube on iOS, it's BA out pushing you to pay for their service.
 

twinlight

macrumors 6502a
Sep 4, 2016
717
542
I never really understood the reason for background playback. Don't you want to see the video?

Does it still use data for video without actually showing it?
 

Cakefish

macrumors 6502a
Oct 14, 2015
512
308
You can stream in the background if you have YouTube red. It's not about crippling YouTube on iOS, it's BA out pushing you to pay for their service.
Can't pay for a service that's unavailable in my country (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻)
 

Justaguy48

macrumors member
May 2, 2017
64
52
I never really understood the reason for background playback. Don't you want to see the video?

Does it still use data for video without actually showing it?
I believe it's for streaming music for free. It isn't what I would do, and personally I find background playback more annoying because I had to pause the video before I close the app.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Goatllama

yanki01

macrumors 68040
Feb 28, 2009
3,682
1,927
only way I got it to work was on safari, reload desktop site and play. hit home and swipe up and hit play again though obviously you won't be able to surf safari while it's playing.
 

macduke

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,473
20,535
It makes sense. Why? YouTube makes money from ads. To get revenue from an ad, you have to be watching it. If you aren't in the YouTube app, you aren't watching it. You might hear it, but you aren't watching it, and companies are paying for ads that you watch and developing ads that focus on visual elements and not audio alone for their campaign to be successful. Therefore YouTube makes people pay for YouTube Red to stream in the background which offsets the lost ad revenue. Considering the bad place that YouTube is in lately with all of the big companies pulling their ads, it makes sense to accelerate this process.

BTW, I'm not a Google fan. Just explaining how their business works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Goatllama

Goatllama

macrumors 6502a
Jun 24, 2015
628
658
Mountaintop Lair
I never really understood the reason for background playback. Don't you want to see the video?

Does it still use data for video without actually showing it?
As @Justaguy48 said, it's for music streaming. Some songs aren't really available elsewhere (ex. Obscure chiptunes from old SNES games), and people tend to upload them to YouTube. YouTube should still profit from the ads, as they are hosting the videos. Then again, these uploaders could just use SoundCloud instead, which would suit this streaming purpose much better. Hopefully they'll start doing that instead.
 

twinlight

macrumors 6502a
Sep 4, 2016
717
542
Only reason I'm looking at the ad is because it takes 5 seconds before I can hit skip.
 

LDNA

macrumors newbie
Jul 2, 2017
27
23
Wow YouTube are preventing people from not complying with their ToS :eek:

If you don't agree with the ToS, then why do you still use their site?
 
  • Like
Reactions: decafjava

Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
It’s not a problem on iPad if you split screen YouTube with the app you’re using (supposing the other app supports it) generally just use the music app on iPhone if I want something on in the background.
 

Feenician

macrumors 603
Jun 13, 2016
5,313
5,100
It’s not a problem on iPad if you split screen YouTube with the app you’re using (supposing the other app supports it) generally just use the music app on iPhone if I want something on in the background.

Another alternative for iPad is to get the (free) Pipifier which puts itself in the share sheet. Access YouTube in the browser, share->Pipifier and you can carry on about your business. You can handily resize or even through pip windows offscreen if you’re listening but not watching. Works on most other videos too.
 

Jaekae

macrumors 6502a
Dec 4, 2012
712
441
So much lol that people still try get free music in 2018 when we have many cheap and good streaming services
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.