While there is high-speed internet available at my workplace, it’s not provided wirelessly and hence I cannot really use my phone as an internet device over there. So, watching videos on YouTube goes out the window, especially since the website itself is also blocked on my corporate network. Being the fun activity that it is, I tend to believe there has to be a workaround.
One solution would be to download videos from YouTube, convert it to an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad friendly format and transfer to my iPhone via iTunes for later viewing. To me, this is a huge hassle, since I’d prefer being able to download a video directly on my iOS device rather than involving my desktop PC. For jailbreakers like myself, this has always been easy since there are numerous apps available for this purpose on Cydia. However, we at TheDailyBuggle never like to let Team Pure feel left out, so this article caters specifically to downloading videos from YouTube to iPhone and other iOS devices without the need to jailbreak. Read on after the jump to find out how.
The application in question is called TagDisk + ($4.99) which is basically a “viewer, web browser and download” alternative according to its developer. For testing and evaluation, there is a free lite version available as well which is limited to downloading four videos only. An iPad version, TagDisk HD + is also present in the App Store and can be purchased for $5.99. They also have a free lite version for the iPad.
Downloading Videos From YouTube To iPhone Simplified
To begin your journey and download videos from YouTube to iPhone, launch the application and you will be greeted by a four-tabbed interface, the default one being Disk to browse files.
Hit the third tab at the bottom called Browser and enter youtube.com in the address bar. The YouTube mobile website should load.
Launch any video of your choice and when it starts to play, tap and hold on the window to bring up a menu. Hit the Download Link button.
The video will instantly start downloading from directly YouTube to iPhone, and you can view the progress as it completes. Simultaneous downloads are possible, and there was no limitation on speed despite using the Lite version.
Videos are all downloaded in high quality, if available.
To play your downloaded videos, go back to the Disk view and choose the Documents folder. All downloaded videos will be present under Files and can be viewed within the application.
TagDisk + has been reported to download not only videos from YouTube to iPhone, but also from Vimeo, though I haven’t tested that myself. Overall, this application provides a great solution for people who don’t want to jailbreak their iPhones, iPod Touches or iPads and still enjoy offline videos from YouTube or other sources.
One hiccup that I personally see is that the ability to download videos from YouTube to iPhone violates Apple’s terms, and for that reason the application might get pulled from the App Store or the developer might be forced to take this nicety out. Either way, grab your copy of TagDisk + now if you find it useful, and better not update if the future versions lack this feature.
For more iOS coverage, please check out our Top 50 iPhone Apps Recommendations and the following articles:
