The YouTube App for iPhone

The YouTube App is one of the pre-installed iPhone Applications that comes with the iPhone software. It allows you to play free YouTube videos posted on the YouTube website.

The YouTube website is a video sharing service provided by Google that allows you to upload your own videos to the internet and allows others to watch those YouTube videos for free.

You can find almost any video you want from many different categories such as Comedy, TV shows, news, and much more. Therefore, think of YouTube as Google for video.

With the introduction of the iPhone in January 9th 2007, one exciting iPhone news was the ability to play YouTube on iPhone over wifi or cellular network by running the YouTube App which allowed you to enjoy millions of free videos on your iPhone.

The problem was that YouTube videos were not fully compatible with the iPhone video format H.264. Therefore, an agreement between Apple and Google led YouTube to re-encode their existing video library to the advanced H.264 format which is fully supported on the iPhone. Click here to read the full story.

Although other smart phones were already capable of playing YouTube videos at that time, the iPhone YouTube App was the first to play high quality H.264 encoded YouTube videos. Now, all the YouTube video libraries are H.264 encoded.

Over wifi, you can enjoy high quality YouTube on your iPhone and iPhone 4.

In June 8th 2009 Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS. This new iPhone allowed you not only to play YouTube video but also to record VGA quality video with the built in camera. Although video recording has been available for other smart phones for sometime, Apple took this concept to a completely new level.

With the iPhone Camera on the iPhone 3GS you were able to capture, edit, and upload your videos to YouTube for video sharing with millions of YouTube users right on your iPhone. Google announced that YouTube on iPhone uploads increased 400% since the introduction of the iPhone 3GS.

The YouTube App for iPhone:

The YouTube application for the iPhone is very simple to use, and if you have a YouTube account, your iPhone application links your iPhone YouTube account with the website YouTube account. If you don't have a YouTube account, you can still watch videos. However, you will not be able to share videos, create a favorites list, sort and create your own video list or track your history. It is recommended that you create an account if you don't have one already.

On your iPhone, when you start the YouTube App, you will see several buttons at the bottom. Make sure you are in More at right bottom.

Now tap the sign in button if you have an account, and enter your email and password to login so that you can link to your existing YouTube account. Once you are logged in the button will change to sign out.

If you tap on history, you will see all the videos that you searched for recently. The most interesting options are My videos which lists the videos you have uploaded so far. 








The Playlist button shows you all your videos that you added to your favorites divided into categories as you have them on your YouTube account on line.

The most useful buttons are the Search button, and the Favorites button at the bottom.

Search allows you to search for any video you like by entering a word or few texts.












You can search for videos in many other languages too. Simply add the language you want to use to your iPhone, and then start typing in YouTube using that language.

For example, I added an Arabic Keyboard to my iPhone, and I can search YouTube for Arabic videos.

The Favorites button is a quick access to your favorite videos that you either added from the YouTube site, or from your iPhone.










To add a favorite on the iPhone application just tap on the Favorite button shown by the blue circle below while the video is playing, and it will be added to your favorites list. You can also email or tweet the YouTube video by simply tapping the options button shown by the red circle in the picture below.

Moreover, you can scale the video to fill the screen by tapping the button at the top right shown by the green circle above.

View YouTube Video on External TV:

YouTube for iPhone supports video out by default which means that you can use a TV out cable or an iPhone HDMI adapter to display Youtube video on your TV or HDTV.

With iOS 4 AirPlay, and iOS 5 AirPlay Mirror for iPhone 4S, you can get rid of the iPhone cables completely and display your YouTube videos on your HDTV without wires over wifi with the use of an Apple TV device. The Air Play button is shown in the picture above by the yellow circle.

While watching any YouTube video, simply tap the Air Play button show by the yellow circle above. Then you will have the option to play the video on your TV if you have an Apple TV connected to your HDTV.

Visit the AirPlay and Apple TV pages to learn more about those exciting technologies.

Download YouTube Videos to Your iPhone:

Some of the drawbacks of playing YouTube videos on your iPhone is that it requires internet connection. It is possible to download any YouTube video to your computer, move it to iTunes, and then sync with your iPhone.

The YouTube video will be transferred to your iPhone, and will play without the need of the internet. There are also some iPhone hacks from Cydia that allows you to download YouTube videos right on your iPhone, and then play them later on the go without the need of the internet. Check out the possibilities of downloading YouTube to your iPhone in this page.

Play YouTube video in the background using PIP or Picture in Picture:

Apple introduced a feature called PIP or Picture in Picture for the iPhone and iPad. It allows movies and shows to be displayed on your iPhone screen on top of whatever app is running. So you can watch your favorite show in a small window, or completely hidden while still browsing your email and the internet. The problem is that Google doesn't allow iPhone users to use this feature within their YouTube app.

Here is a work around that allows you to watch YouTube in Background without having to subscribe to YouTube Red with $10 or $15 per month.

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