YouTube TV’s Multiview feature is reportedly rolling out to iOS devices, giving iPhone owners a new, more immersive way to watch sports.
News of this update comes from multiple users on the YouTubeTV subreddit claiming that they had just received the option on their smartphones. One person even shared a short video of their iPhone playing four different basketball games at once – well, one’s a commercial, but you can tell it’s basketball due to the ESPN banner.
We don’t know the full capabilities of Multiview on YouTube for iOS. According to 9To5Google it can be activated from the app’s Home tab, however it “only works with select games,” and it doesn't have all of the same features as the smart TV version.
Multiview on iOS apparently can’t show sports scores alongside a broadcast, nor does it have the Last Channel Shortcut to hop between recently viewed channels. There is a gap in performance, but regardless of what it can’t do, Multiview on mobile is still very useful to have, especially now during March Madness.
Availability
It appears this isn’t a limited roll out as a company representative told Reddit users the feature will appear in a patch that will be available on all iOS devices. You need to have YouTube version 8.11 installed to see the option.
The feature is also coming to iPadOS, as another user claims to have the patch on their iPad Pro 12.9. Admittedly, it’s difficult to watch four sports games on their iPhone since the small screen shrinks each window considerably, but iPad owners should have a better viewing experience.
An Android version is apparently in the works, however it won’t be out for a while. The same representative said that the update will arrive within “the coming months” although it may arrive sooner than expected. One user claims to have received a notification after opening the YouTube app on their Android informing them of Multiview. But, when they checked, it wasn’t actually there.
We reached out to Google asking them to confirm whether or not the iOS release will reach everyone or just a select few. We'll update this story if we learn anything new.
Update: A company representative got back to us and confirmed that all iOS users will receive the patch, so long as you have the latest YouTube update. That's the most important part. As for Android, they couldn't give us an exact date, but did say it will roll out later this summer.
Until then, check out TechRadar's list of the best iPhone for 2024 if you're looking to upgrade.
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