Every once in a while, you have probably went to watch a YouTube video on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and been shown an “owner has not made this video available on mobile” pre-roll message or error. Normally, you might have to accept defeat and resort to your desktop to watch the video.
Mobile Safari on iOS 8 has a new Request Desktop Site feature, however, that allows you to bypass this YouTube message and watch the video directly on your iOS device. Follow these simple step-by-step instructions on how to Request Desktop Website using Safari on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch:
- Step 1: Navigate to the YouTube website through Safari on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
- Step 2: Tap on the Address Bar where YouTube.com is displayed.
- Step 3: Swipe down on the Bookmarks screen that appears.
- Step 4: Tap on Request Desktop Site.
- Step 5: You can now view videos that are not available on mobile.
Let us know if this trick works for you in the comments section below. Feel free to share any other Safari tips and tricks that you know.
Why do users not make videos available to mobile users?
Mostly due to piracy. Some 3rd party apps on the App Store allows you to download and save their videos and some uploaders don’t want that and of course Jailbreakers can download the video straight to the Video app.
That’s really silly. Don’t they know that HTTP header can be forged to anything you like ?
Not exactly. Mobile YouTube hasn’t always/doesn’t/may not show advertisements the same was as on desktop. While YouTube authors can always disable mobile as they desire, they sometimes cannot enable it due to copyright restrictions. For example, if you include copyrighted music and the copyright holder doesn’t get ad revenue on mobile since ads can’t be served, they can disable the ability to publish to mobile. It’s all about the $$. Most people don’t realize this about YouTube. (Or that people make as much money off YouTube as they do, just for having viewers and subscribers!)
I never understood this. I don’t even know how to download videos from YouTube onto my iPhone, even if I did it would be a hell of allot easier to hop on my Mac and do it in about 5 clicks…