YouTube website has reached "Peak Annoyance" -- any good YouTube app for iPhone?

SevenSystems

So, Google is apparently in another "redesign frenzy" on YouTube in the past few weeks, resulting in, as always, more bugginess, more slowness, less usability, and an absolutely shocking "innvovation" that apparently makes ALL videos AUTOPLAY, including WHILE BROWSING THE FEED.

This is obviously completely unacceptable and this finally makes me look for alternative ways to watch YouTube on iPhone.

Can anyone recommend a YouTube app for iPhone that will let me browse my (already curated) feed WITHOUT any kind of AutoPlay, that has an ad blocker, and as a bonus can play videos in the background (when locking the device or backgrounding the app)?

Thanks!

jo92346

Disable the auto play in settings.
Personally on iPad and iPhone I use safari and vinegar they gets rid of the ads and allows pip.

SevenSystems

@jo92346 said:
Disable the auto play in settings.
Personally on iPad and iPhone I use safari and vinegar they gets rid of the ads and allows pip.

Where do I find that setting?

Thanks for pointing me to Vinegar, that looks great from the description.

EDIT: Whoopsie, iOS 15 required...

michael_m

Buggy here too - quite often get incorrect items on context menus, and recommended videos are often repeated. Seems like the frequency of advertising has increased too.

Would love to find an alternative app.

SevenSystems

@michael_m said:
Buggy here too - quite often get incorrect items on context menus, and recommended videos are often repeated. Seems like the frequency of advertising has increased too.

Would love to find an alternative app.

Heh, list of bugs off the top of my head:

• the "Back" arrow in the upper left literally calls JS history.back(), which won't work if you have, for example, called up that page from a bookmark.
• seen the "duplicate entries" problem in the feed too, it seems to happen mostly if you tap things like "Not interested". Basic Kindergarten mistakes really.
• tap areas seem to be misaligned with menu entries (there's a vertical offset)
• sound often doesn't work, I keep having to reload the page multiple times until sound appears (yes, I tap on "Tap video to unmute" every time)

But it's mostly the user experience really that ticks me off.

FastGhost

@SevenSystems I've long believed that Google / YouTube deliberately make the experience on iOS as appalling as possible. However, help is at hand. Install Vinegar: https://andadinosaur.com/launch-vinegar - honestly, it's the only thing that makes YouTube bearable.

FastGhost

Oh, I see that was recommended in the first reply. Must remember to read the replies first.

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gsm909

Vinegar is all you need 👍

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recycle

You can try Youtube++ app for iPhone. Cumbersome to install, but it works