My point is that it may be a violation to allow background playback of video on iOS; my point was not respondent to whether or not other apps may also may be in similar violation by allowing background playback of video, whether or not they’re free or paid.
To your point, there are alternate YouTube players which allow background video playback besides the website and iOS app on iOS, but you have to sideload them. There may be others which do not require sideloading, but none that I’m aware of. I’m not sure but it’s likely against some kind of TOS to use them, but interoperability exemptions for accessibility may apply.
It is not a violation to allow background play of video. No guideline prohibits it. The Plex app allows background play, for example. Apple also provides documentation to developers on how to enable this functionality in their apps. (1)
If it were against policy to enable play of video in the background, then it seems that would be an even more egregious violation by YouTube, as not only do they have the functionality in the app, but they charge users money to access it.
Thanks for following up on this. It’s good to have this clarity into the guidelines and that other apps implement this functionality in different ways.
