**Update February 18, 2013

Great news! Thanks to reader Justin, it looks like TubeBox Pro has be re-released under a new name: Instatube. Go download it while it’s free and available!

**Update February 4, 2013

This post seems to be getting a lot of hits, so I thought I’d better update it. It looks like Apple has pulled TubeBox from the AppStore. Fortunately for those who downloaded it, they will still be able to use it fully with all its features listed below. If you missed it, there seems to be a influx of these types of apps appearing.

*Update! December 4, 2012. Google has finally released an iPad version of the YouTube app. You are now able to search for it in the App store. However, despite this, the ability of saving videos and playing them offline makes TubeBox Pro still superior.

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iPad owners will notice that there currently is no official YouTube app installed on their devices. TubeBox Pro is a great third-party YouTube app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. TubeBox presents a great new way to watch (and save) YouTube videos on your devices. It is currently costs $1.99USD (a cheaper, $.99 version is available as well, with ads). I currently have 10 promo codes of TubeBox Pro for you. Instructions on how to win them are at the bottom of this post.

A few months ago, I told you about Downloader Elite (now called Media Downloader). A great feature of that app was the ability to download YouTube videos and save them to Camera Roll. Since then, however, its developers have updated the app to remove that ability. Those of you who were able to download it before the update (and have not updated since) still can save any YouTube video.

When Apple released iOS 6, they removed the native YouTube app off the devices of everyone who upgraded, due to the end of licensing agreements between Apple and Google. YouTube did release an iPhone app, which still works quite well. As of the time of this writing, for some reason, an official YouTube iPad app has not been released. You can use the iPhone app on your iPad, and while the videos look fine, the menus and playlists definitely look grainy while scaled to fit the iPad screen.

TubeBox, a fine YouTube viewer

I have found myself using TubeBox everyday, both at work and at home. Within TubeBox, you have the capability to save any videos directly to your device for offline viewing. This, again, is a great feature, especially for those of us who like to view the same videos over and over without using any bandwidth (wifi or data). For commuters, watching your favorite YouTube videos would even work on non-data devices, like the iPod touch and wifi iPad.

The home screen shows you all the “Playlists” that you can create and name. The default folders are “Featured, Favorites, and My Videos”. These are fully editable to be named anything you’d like. You can have as little or as many playlists you want. As teachers, you can divide your saved videos to subject or grade, just like within YouTube.

Another great thing about having your videos saved to your Camera Roll is that you can import them into movie making apps such as iMovie or Pinnacle. The opportunities seem endless, as you can create your own movies and incorporate little scenes from almost anything imaginable.

All of your YouTube playlists are available. So if you do not have a need to save any videos locally, you can just surf YouTube as you normally would on your computer.

More Features of TubeBox:

1. To save a video, simply tap the + sign. The video will then be added to the downloads list, upon which you can designate which folder you want to put it in.
2. Playlists are continuous, meaning you can just let the videos play one after another, without having to press play multiple times.
3. You can play TubeBox in the background; if you just want music played, you can use other apps at the same time.
4. Another cool task you can accomplish with your saved is open them in other apps (see the screenshot below). Essentially, you can now save these videos in services such as Goodreader, Dropbox and Evernote. I tested this out: I saved a 3 minute video onto a Dropbox folder and watched it on another device. Worked great!

School Uses

As previously mentioned in my Downloader Elite post, here are some uses for saving videos:

• Teachers can show videos to their students without relying on the wifi connection;
• Parents can show their children appropriate videos while on an airplane or on a road trip;
• Mobile teachers (travelling, non-classroom owning teachers, like myself) do not have to worry about internet connectivity or any streaming issues; Some classrooms may not have wifi readily available;
• There will be absolutely no lag as these videos are completely saved onto the devices;
• No use of bandwidth, no need for wifi (watch the videos countless times without worrying about data usage!);
• Private music teachers/tutors can portably take any video of their choosing and use them in their teaching when on the road;
• Create an iMovie project for students to make videos. They can incorporate small YouTube clips into it by saving them first to Camera Roll (legality issues notwithstanding);

A small request for this app would be the ability to share links to videos via email, Twitter, or Message, like you can in the YouTube app. Often, when I teach guitar, we look for videos of songs to play with and I send video links to the students so that they can practice at home. Hopefully this will come in a future release.

Conclusion

TubeBox (iTunes link) is a must-have for YouTube users. The abilities to save your favorite videos to your Camera Roll and then edit them in iMovie make it a superb app. I think this is without a doubt the best YouTube client available. There are a lot of other paid YouTube players, but there is absolutely no need to try them out with the availability of TubeBox.

3 easy instructions for my promo code giveaway:

1. Follow me on Twitter (so I can DM you the promo code if you win);
2. Leave a comment below about how you would use the app;
3. Tweet, Facebook Share, or Pinterest this (or any) post with the hashtag #teachingwithipad;

This will close on Tuesday, December 4th. I will choose 10 people and let them know through Twitter Direct Message. If you don’t have a Twitter account, leave your email address in the comments. Good luck!