YouTube videos appearing blurry or excessively buffering on your iPhone? Videos streaming on 144p or 360p resolution despite being on a fast Wi-Fi connection?
You’re not alone in facing these problems. Don’t point fingers at your ISP either — the issue stems from YouTube’s end.
YouTube serving low-quality videos to iOS users
YouTube automatically adjusts the video playback quality based on your internet speed for the best viewing experience. However, due to an ongoing bug, Google says YouTube servers might serve you blurry and lower-quality videos. The issue impacts both regular YouTube videos and Shorts, regardless of whether users are on the YouTube Premium Lite plan or are free users.
In a post on its support community, YouTube acknowledged the issue and confirmed that it’s working on a solution. As a result of this problem, you may encounter the following issues while playing YouTube videos:
- YouTube streaming at 144p or 360p despite strong internet connection
- Buffering when changing to higher quality
- Video quality could be impacted on iOS mobile, desktop, or Smart TV
The poor quality issue doesn’t seem to be widespread. However, it has persisted for over 12 hours. That’s unusually long, considering Google’s typical speed in resolving such problems.
Use Safari until Google resolves the problem
Until Google solves the underlying issue, you are stuck with watching YouTube videos in low resolution on your iPhone or iPad. You can try switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data to see if that helps. Alternatively, try using YouTube in Safari to see if that helps improve the quality.
If none of these workarounds help, you might want to wait until Google resolves the problem.
Rajesh has been closely following and writing about the latest happenings in the world of mobile for nearly a decade now. While he prefers Android, he does not deny the superiority of Apple’s products and ecosystem.
