Unsurprisingly, Android makes it easy to watch YouTube videos. There’s an app ready to go, so that you can search for and watch videos without working through the web interface. Yet there are some instances where you want the video sitting right on your phone. Maybe it’s memorable enough to warrant local storage. Maybe it’s because you’re preparing for a trip in which you’ll be offline. Maybe it’s because you want to conserve battery. Whatever the case, that requires a quality YouTube downloader. When looking through the Market to find YouTube downloaders, I expected to find more than a few. They’re common enough with the desktop interface that I figured it would naturally extend to Android. I was wrong. Really, there is only one prominent app that performs this function: TubeMate. It allows you to download YouTube videos in a number of resolutions and formats, so that you’re getting exactly what you want. It has its issues, but right now it’s the best option available. 
The video downloads come in a number of resolutions, from 1920×180, for tablet devices, to 320×240. There are plenty in between for higher video quality, but they have various requirements (such as a higher-end device or a specific media player). You can also save the file as an MP3, which works great for music videos. The sound quality isn’t the best, which is the price you pay for a free download. But that it’s na option certainly helps. The app also includes its own player, powered by Meridian. This allows you to create playlists as well, so you can line up all of your YouTube snatches and play them right from the app. TubeMate has undergone many changes in the last couple of weeks, and if you read the comments in the Market it appears that the latest one, enacted April 4, caused a few malfunctions. But the app is free, so it’s worth a shot. You can get TubeMate in the Market via App Brain. For those who experience a non-functioning app, I expect they’ll have a bug fix soon enough.
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