Tooble Review: YouTube Videos on Your iPod in 3 Clicks
- Multiple Ways of Locating Videos
- Everything is in One Window
- No Direct Connection to Safari
- Interface is not the cleanest
If you’re a regular fan of Mac Apps, you are no stranger downloading and converting YouTube videos for later playback on your iPod. The usual app for this job involves finding the video in your favorite web browser, copying and pasting the URL into a separate window, and then having the app download the file and convert it to the proper iPod format. What if I told you there was a way to get all of this done in one window without even opening your web browser? Introducing Tooble, the one-windowed app designed to get YouTube videos on your iPod in 3 clicks.
Tooble’s interface is simple and straightforward. There’s no fluff or extra features that aren’t needed; just select the video and hit “Download”. Tooble accomplishes this by having multiple ways to locate and select your videos for conversion. One way is to copy the YouTube.com URL into the “Enter a URL” sheet, accessible by clicking the button in the top left-hand corner of the main window. Hitting “Okay” sends Tooble on its way starting the download and conversion process.
Another way of locating your videos is by using the left-hand sidebar filled with YouTube’s categories and feeds. These feeds range from “Recently Featured” to “Most Viewed”. If you enter in your YouTube account screen name, you can use the “Your Favorites” feed to immediately access your favorite videos. Once you’ve scrolled through the now populated video list, check your selections and hit the “Download” button located in the bottom left-hand corner to convert them.
The third and final way to search and locate videos on YouTube with Tooble is with the handy dandy search field in the top right-hand corner. Enter your terms and hit Enter. Check your videos and hit “Download” to get things rolling.
Tooble’s performance most definitely varies based on the processing power of your Mac and the length of the video you are trying to download and convert, however I have found that it runs pretty smoothly. Tooble is required to run on Mac OS 10.4 Tiger or higher not to mention it’s also available on the PC for Windows XP or Vista.
There was one hitch, however. When opening the app for the first time, I started searching for videos via the search bar at the top. Almost immediately the processing speed of my Mac dropped to a dull roar, making everything virtually useless. After force quitting and trying it again, there seemed to be no problem. Just be sure to watch out for a few bugs like these.
Overall Tooble is a great app that does what it’s supposed to do: download and convert YouTube videos for the iPod quickly and easily. Though it might not be the most beautiful in terms of the interface, it certainly has all of the features easily accessible placed right where you need them. Performance is touchy but satisfying. At the time of writing, Tooble is version 1.0 and contains a few hiccups from time to time when locating videos.
Look for Tooble at Tooble.tv for the wonderful price of Free!
(Oh, and a few hours ago, MacApper was going quite slow. Anything happened?)
Same the current way was so slow, going through activity monitor…download…convert
This is awesome thanks!
so will this format to play right on an iphone or just nano/classic ipods?
I am also finding that the thumbnails it shows for the videos do not match the actual video
Great review…thanks!
Is there any way to set the folder location where all videos are downloaded?
@Nigle: I believe it works on all iPods.
@Sandman: I looked for an option, but I guess it just saves them to the desktop.
I love this program. Simple, elegant and gets the job done with almost no effort. They way I used to do it was a big pain…
This app is a total piece of crap. The downloads always hang up, you can’t cancel a download, and you can only convert to one format.
There are many other programs that do the same thing much better, and I hear this one is infected with a virus in the PC version.