The ability to download YouTube videos directly to your
iPhone is a tricky operation that requires iPhone
jailbreak. However, there are some other options that allow you to
download and play YouTube video on your iPhone without jailbreaking.
One
disadvantage with YouTube is that you have to have an internet
connection to access the videos. There are times when you want to watch
your favorite YouTube video, and you are faced with one of two
scenarios:
First scenario is that the internet connection is too
slow, in which case the video will start breaking and buffering too
often, and the quality of the video would drop dramatically. The second
scenario is when there is no internet connection at all where you won't
be able to access YouTube at all.
The solution to this problem
is to download your favorite YouTube videos to your iPhone so they are
always available at high quality regardless of the internet connection.
There are several methods to download YouTube videos to your iPhone so you can play them off line with no internet
connection. You can then use any third party iPhone movie player to play the downloaded youtube video.
1- Download YouTube video to Mac or PC Using Firefox:
DownloadHelper is a free plug-in for Firefox that
adds the
ability to download any video that is viewable in Firefox to your
computer including YouTube video. First, you need to open Firefox browser, or if
you don’t have Firefox, then download it from here and install the DownloadHelper
plug-in.
After you install the plug-in, a new button that looks
like three
balls will appear next to the address bar. When you open a YouTube
video, this button will show up and starts moving indicating that you
can download the video.
Click on the down aero next to the moving colored balls
button
and select the mp4 files and quick download. The file will start
downloading to your computer. You want the mp4 file which is a supported iPhone
video format. Then drag the downloaded mp4 file to iTunes video and sync your
iPhone to transfer the video.
Click YouTube Video Download is another nice free plugin for Firefox. Once you install it, you will get a download link to the YouTube file in all available formats.
You can see three possible download links that will show up at the
bottom right of YouTube player. In this example, FLV, MP4 and 3GP are
all possible to download once you click on the link.
For your iPhone, always download the MP4 video format in both of the Firefox plugins. Then, drag and drop the video you just downloaded from your computer to iTunes.
Finally, sync your iPhone and the YouYube video will be transferred to
your iPhone. You can access this video by tapping the Video
button at the bottom of the iPod App.
2- Download YouTube Video Using Websites Services:
There are many websites that provide the service of downloading any
YouTube video to your computer. You simply enter the url address of the YouTube video,
and click download. It will grab the video and download it to your
computer.
keepvid.com is a free service that is very easy to use and allows you to download
a YouTube video to your Mac or PC. Simply copy and paste the
YouTube url address to the url area in the website and click download.
A new window will open with two or more download links, one in
flv or
flash format, and another one in mp4 format. Click on the mp4 format
and the download will start.
Then you can located the downloaded mp4 file and drag it to your video in iTunes, and then sync your iPhone.
3- Download YouTube Videos Directly to the iPhone:
aTube is a third party YouTube app from Cydia, that allows you to search the YouTube
library and watch or download the video directly to your iPhone.
However, it doesn't support non-English characters and it doesn't use
the native YouTube player.
MxTube is another third party
app from Cydia that allows you to download videos from YouTube to your
iPhone. It has many features like video quality selection, TV out, and
the option to search either YouTube mobile or youtube.com.
YourTube is a $2.0 hack to the default YouTube app that comes with the iPhone.
It adds a download capability to the YouTube app. This is the best
option to download YouTube videos right on your iPhone.
After
you install this plug-in and open the YouTube app as normal, locate the
video you want to download, and click the aero to see more information
about the video.
A little download icon appears at the top right corner
that allows you to download the video.
You can select high
quality or low quality download.
The Downloads button is also available when
you click the “More” button at the bottom.
It will show you the current
downloads status and their progress.
Simply tap any of the video files in your downloads folder, and it will play with no need to connect to the internet.