Another handy new feature that came along with the recent iOS5 update has been discovered! With this little hack you can listen to your favorite YouTube videos without having to stare at the actual video, which most of the time is just a still photo of an album cover for me anyways.

Using this feature closes the full YouTube application and lets you run just the audio stream in the background. As I type this I can almost hear all Apple devices’ batteries breath a collective sigh of relief.

This should sound familiar for those of you who used to do this iTunes, because it’s exactly the same thing, except using YouTube. For those who are new to this, don’t fret. It’s as easy as 1-2-3 to enjoy a new level of App freedom.

– How to Play YouTube Audio-Only Streams

1. Play Any Video on YouTube

Open up the YouTube App on your device, and find a video. Don’t worry at all about what kind of video it is. Anything will work!

2. Push The Home Button

While the video is playing just go ahead and push the home button. In case you don’t know the home button, it is the only button on the face of your device. At this time the video and audio will stop completely, but don’t panic! That’s why there’s a step three.

3. Push The Home Button Twice

By pushing the home button twice quickly you will bring up a bar of icons at the bottom of the screen. These icons are the apps you recently used set on standby. Since you just closed YouTube, it should be the first icon there, but don’t touch it! Instead swipe your finger to the right. Doing this will make the bar become a little audio player with your previous YouTube video queued up to play. Play it, then just press the home button to close the bar and do whatever you want on your device while you enjoy the sounds of your favorite YouTube videos.

If for any reason this doesn’t work for you or you can only get iTunes to come up on the mini-player, you probably haven’t updated your device to iOS5 yet. Otherwise it should have been smooth sailing. In fact I’m going over to the local seniors center and teach them how to do it right now!
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