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Bring back YouTube to your iPad with YouPlayer
It's lacking in the features department, but if you are looking for a simple yet effective YouTube player for the iPad, YouPlayer is it.
I may have gushed a bit too much about Jasmine, a free YouTube app for the iPad, when I wrote about it last month. The app is unquestionably slick and packed with features, but the more I've used it the past couple of weeks, the more annoyed I've grown by the number of videos that it can't play. It feels like a game of Russian roulette anytime I try to play a music video with Jasmine: sometimes I win when it plays the video, and sometimes I lose when I get a black screen with a message that says, "YouTube has restricted the feeds for this video."
Since Google has yet to release a YouTube app for the iPad, I went searching for another player. And I didn't have to look far: yesterday YouPlayer was sitting at the top of the charts (today, it's currently No. 5 on the free apps chart).
(Credit:
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET)
After using YouPlayer yesterday and this morning, I can report the app has played every video I've come across, including many I know did not play with Jasmine. On the downside, there are some useful features you get with Jasmine that are missing with YouPlayer. When watching a video, you can subscribe to it or mark it as a favorite, but you can't view or add comments or create playlists. You also aren't given the capability to play videos in the background; close the app and the video you are watching stops. Lastly, YouPlayer serves a banner ad when you are browsing via the Featured, Most Viewed, Trending, Nearby, Search, and Top Rated buttons. (An in-app purchase of 99 cents gets rid of the ads.)
The menu options run along the bottom of the screen. You can sign in to your account via the Settings button. After doing so, a More button gets added to the menu bar, where you can access your favorites, subscriptions, and your own videos.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET)
What is your current arrangement for watching YouTube clips on your iPad? Please share in the comments below.
