I received an email from Uber today with my 2017 statistics:
Hooray, my Uber rating is 0.01 points above average! After a year of sobering news due to crazy national and international events, I suppose this is very welcome—assuming that it is not fake news. The email provided a link to more Uber 2017 stats. Happy Ubering!
In November 2013, we celebrated my daughter’s 4th birthday at a place called Under the Sea. My wife and I thought that the facilities were good, but the poor customer service really ruined our (i.e., the adults, not the kids) experience. The staff was rude and unhelpful, as I stated in my review under my username of String T. (as in “String Theorist”). Additionally, I pointed out that the 5-star review provided by Jasmin A. needed to be discounted because she was an employee and therefore violated a Yelp content guideline for community reviews which aims to prevent conflicts of interest among other things.
Shortly after submission, I was shocked to discover that not only was Jasmin A.’s 5-star review prominently displayed as a Recommended Review despite its violation of a Yelp content guideline, my review was demoted to “not recommended” status but could be accessed by clicking on a link toward the bottom of the page. As a new Yelp contributor, I did not know it at the time, but Yelp explains how it programmatically categorizes reviews under “recommended” status. My review clearly did not pass muster despite it being an expression of my honest opinions and compliant with all of Yelp’s contributor guidelines. I felt at the time that Yelp was evil for its policies that resulted in censorship and bias.
Fast forward about 4 years. About a week ago, I had a surprisingly pleasant experience at a hole-in-the-wall barber shop/salon as well as a nearby hole-in-the-wall donut shop, so I thought I’d give Yelp another try by writing a couple of positive reviews. They were both immediately listed as Recommended Reviews. No drama there.
Out of curiosity, I went back to my original review of Under the Sea to find that it had been promoted to a Recommended Review and had been voted as “useful” by 19 people and “funny” by 3 people. I am not sure what triggered the re-classification, nor do I know when in the last 4 years it occurred, but nevertheless I wondered if maybe Yelp is not as evil as I had thought.
Then I noticed a little icon indicating that I had unread notifications. When I clicked on the icon, here’s what I saw:
Apparently Jasmin A. messaged me on 11/23/2013 to request a discussion about why I was so dissatisfied with the customer service. On 5/1/2014, after not receiving a reply from me (since I had not logged on to Yelp, nor do I recall receiving an email notification from Yelp), she blasted an angry response to my comment that her self-promoting 5-star rating of her employer was in violation of Yelp guidelines and was therefore unethical.
I took a screen shot of her messages and posted it to the Photos section of the Under the Sea page on Yelp to illustrate the kind of employee she was. I also reported her to Yelp, and about a week later, I received the following reply:
I thought the response by Yelp was appropriate and reflected a good-faith attempt to optimize the experience of the community it serves. I also felt that issuing a warning to Jasmin A. was appropriate, as a termination of her account or other similar action may have been too severe for the offense. In any case, I hope she learns that nothing good can come out of being rude and offensive. So maybe Yelp is not quite so evil after all. What do you think about Yelp?
Remember when David Dao was forcibly removed from his United Airlines flight back in April 2017? Well, today I was checking in for my flight, and during the online checkin process, I was prompted with the following question that I had not previously seen:
Upon doing some research, I came across this article which says that United is now letting passengers bid on prices to give up their seats on overbooked flights, and it has "increased the maximum incentive payment offered passengers to voluntarily give up a seat on an overbooked flight to $10,000."
What if everyone clicked "Enter other amount in USD" and entered $10,000? Come on, America--we can unite (pun intended) on this issue! We can do this!
I have a large external hard drive onto which I am able to fit my entire collection of digital photos and videos. In browsing some of the administrator functions associated with the external hard drive, I came across this page:
I noticed that as of today, I have a grand total of 110,118 pictures and 3,909 videos. I am assuming that "pictures" is inclusive of .JPG as well as raw (e.g., Canon's .CR2 format) and photoshop (.PSD) file. Soon I will be adding .HEIC files to my collection, as iOS 11 has replaced .JPG with .HEIC as its new default image file format--I assume that these files will fall under the "pictures" tally as well.
Finally, I assume that "videos" is inclusive of .MOV (the native format in Apple devices), .MTS (the native AVCHD format in my Canon camcorder), and .MP4 (the common format that is almost universally compatible with modern devices like desktops, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, and TV set top boxes). If so, then those numbers should be representative of my complete collection. A final note... while iOS 11 will be replacing the H.264 codec with HEVC, I believe videos will continue to have a .MOV container, so the file extension should not change.
So those are my stats. Do you know how many photos and videos you have in your collection?
The 2017 Eclipse Across America took place a couple days ago on August 21, 2017. The approximately 70-mile wide path of totality extended from coast to coast, starting in Oregon and finishing its trek across America in South Carolina. Although my home in Los Angeles was not in the path of totality, nor did I travel to the path of totality, I still planned to capture the event. Here are details of the partial eclipse from the vantage point of my home in Los Angeles:
The important information for me to know was that the maximum eclipse was calculated to occur at 17:20:51 UT (10:20:51 AM Pacific time) with 62.1% obscuration. For some reason, I was not very interested in getting solar shades to look directly at the sun. I guess I prefer to capture events so I can relive them later. So I did 3 things...
First, I recorded a timelapse series with my GoPro HERO3+ which, according to this article, was deemed safe to use in directly photographing the sun, without the need for special filters. My setup was simple and involved mounting the GoPro on a tripod using a standard GoPro mount with 1/4" thread converter.
I pointed it at the sun and took 1 photo every 10 seconds. With a fully charged battery, I started the timelapse at 9:14 AM Pacific and ended 778 frames later at 11:23 AM Pacific when my battery died. Fortunately I had enough battery power to capture the maximum partial eclipse. I edited the photos in Lightroom by cropping the original 4000x3000 pixel images to 1920x1080, straightening the crop angle, and applying some other minor adjustments such as tweaks to highlights, shadows, and curves. I composed the video in Final Cut Pro X in 1080p 60fps. Each image was set to display for 2 frames (i.e., 2 frames divided by 60 frames/second = 1/30 second), so my final speed was 300x. I was surprised that even during maximum eclipse with 62.1% obscuration, the sun appeared to be circular in shape (see video below). I was not expecting to see a clean crescent, but I thought at least the sun would not appear to be a nice round circle. I suspect that this was due to a combination of the overwhelming brightness of the sun combined with usage of a low-resolution wide-angle GoPro.
Second, I read about binocular projections and decided to try making one by myself. I secured my binoculars to a tripod using rubber bands and pointed it at the sun—of course, without looking through the binoculars. After all, everybody knows that you're not supposed to look directly at the sun, right? I covered one of the lenses to avoid generating a duplicate image. I then placed a paper notepad on the ground, cardboard side up, onto which I projected the (monocular) image. For me, the trick in getting a better visualization of the eclipse was to create enough shade around the lens, and I did so by simply tearing a hole in a piece of paper and threading the the binocular lenses through the hole. My makeshift binocular projection looked like this:
As you can see, you get a much larger projection than with a pinhole camera, and naturally I was inclined to take photos of the binocular projection.
Third, I played around with pinhole projections. Instead of creating a typical pinhole-on-a-cereal-box viewer, I decided to play around with various objects such as a colander and strainer. I found the colander to be too large and unwieldy for me to cover its edges with paper to visualize the crescent projections. The strainer worked better due to its size, but with its relatively large holes (which I did not measure but estimate to be 3-4mm in diameter), the projections were blurry. Next time I'll try to prepare in advance some objects that have smaller holes. Nevertheless, I had fun searching for "natural" pinhole projections such as crescent formations through tree leaves and the tiny holes in our living room blinds.
A video with footage of the timelapse, binocular projection, and pinhole projections is available here:
Now that I have a little bit of experience with capturing a solar eclipse, I should be ready for the next American total eclipse on April 8, 2024. Hopefully next time I'll have a chance to travel to the path of totality.
While in Hawaii (Oahu) a few weeks ago, we swam in the pool at the Moana Surfrider hotel. My daughter said she saw poop in the pool, and she got a good look at it because she was wearing goggles. I did not have goggles and could not see as clearly, but I did see several pieces of solid matter in the shallow end of the pool that resembled poop. I told the pool attendant, and he gave me goggles and asked me to verify. I reiterated that I think it's poop, I reiterated that my daughter thinks that it's poop, and I said I was not interested in going back in the pool. This was apparently insufficient to cause any concern on the part of the hotel staff. They did not evacuate the pool or even make any kind of announcement. Quite disappointed, we left the pool and didn't swim there for another couple days, in hopes that the existing chlorine would eventually disinfect the pool.
An astute reader might ask, "What does this story have to do with the 'Digital Daddy' theme of the blog?" There is nothing about technology, electronics, computers, photography, etc. Oh, but I beg to differ. Before I vacated the pool, I recorded a video with my GoPro HERO3+ of the alleged poop. Gotta love technology! Here are some screenshots from the video.
Not wanting to risk getting infected with or otherwise impacted by malware, I decided not to visit the site. I did contact someone from the company (who had reached out to me via LinkedIn), and he said he'd look into it. Fast forward a few days to today, Google no longer reports the site has being hacked, so it guess their webmaster did the necessary things to recover their site.
For less tech savvy individuals with web sites, I learned that there are companies that focus on helping others recover hacked web sites. Very unfortunate but interesting nonetheless.
The other day, I received an email from Spirit Airlines. Here's the body of the message:
Unfortunately I was not surprised at all when I read this message because I had been previously notified by 2 different academic institutions on separate occasions that their systems were breached, and my personal information was among the stolen records. Still, it was nice of Spirit Airlines to notify me.
To corroborate what I already knew, I visited Have I been pwned? which is a web site that tells you if you have an email address that has been compromised in a data breach. Of course, you should be cautious about submitting your email address to a web site that you don't trust, but if it makes you feel more secure, this site is trusted by the Wall Street Journal (subscription required to read the full article, but the video is free) because of its transparent practices.
In case you're wondering, here's more info about the origin of the word pwned. Have you been pwned?
For the past 1-2 years, I have been using the Google Photos iOS app on my iPhone to backup all of my photos and videos to my Google account. When a video is uploaded, Google "processes" the video which means it gets converted into a number of different formats and resolutions so it can be played back on different devices and resolutions (similar to what happens when you upload a video to YouTube). Recently I shot numerous videos in 1080p 60fps and synchronized them to Google Photos. Although I uploaded them on August 5, they were still processing on August 7:
However, sometime between August 7 and August 10 (today), the videos finished processing and are now playable. It looks like this issue has been reported in many online forums, and in case others are wondering, my videos eventually became available, I just had to wait a few days.
Despite the delays in video processing, I am still a big fan of Google Photos. A slight delay due to video processing time is a small inconvenience in return for free unlimited compressed (although high quality) backups of photos and videos.
On 7/28/2017, I updated my 15-inch 2016 MacBook Pro from macOS Sierra 10.12.5 to 10.12.6. Upon rebooting to complete installation, the App Store app told me that I still had 1 update available. Upon launching the App Store app, that 1 update was for macOS Sierra 10.12.6, despite me having just installed 10.12.6. Here's proof:
So instead of re-installing the 10.12.6 update, I rebooted my machine, thinking that it was mistakenly prompting me to re-install the operating system. Upon reboot, it told me again that I still had 1 update for 10.12.6, so I re-installed the 10.12.6 update. After the 2nd installation and rebooting, it STILL told me that I had a 10.12.6 update available. So at that time, I just ignored the prompting. A few days and a couple of restarts later, my MacBook Pro is no longer prompting me to update to 10.12.6. Couldn't it have gotten things right the first time?
My wife reported that she has recently had trouble charging her iPhone 6 Plus. Normally she plugs it into a wall socket where the USB-to-Lightning cable is sandwiched between the Apple wall outlet adapter and a wooden laundry bin. Thinking that there could be something wrong with the iPhone Lightning port or the lightning connector on the cable, or the cable itself, I charged her phone using my USB-to-Lightning cable and Apple wall outlet adapter, and everything worked fine. To test the cord itself, I was going to try to charge my iPhone 6 Plus with her charging cable. Upon plugging her USB-to-Lightning cable (just the cable without an attached iPhone) into my iMac (running macOS Sierra 10.12.5), the following message appeared:
To confirm, I plugged the same USB-to-Lightning cable (again, cable only) into my wife's iMac (running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6) and saw the following message:
Therefore, it seems pretty conclusive that the USB-to-Lightning cable is defective. Upon visual inspection, both ends of the cable are noticeably bent near the connectors, probably from being sandwiched against the wall:
Lately I've been doing a little more running than usual, so I've taken greater interest in Apple's iOS Activity App. Since I often run the same route, I've measured the distance on Google Maps and have found the Activity app to be highly accurate in terms of estimating distances.
I wonder if distance is estimated using data from its built-in accelerometers and gyroscopes alone or if GPS data is also used to optimize precision. To investigate, I checked my Location Services settings. There is an option to toggle Location Services on/off globally, or one can globally enable Location Services but toggle it on/off for each individual app. I discovered that the Activity app is entirely missing from the list of apps:
So does that mean Activity does not use GPS at all? Inquiring minds want to know.
2017-07-24 UPDATE: Today I turned off Location Services, so in theory the Activity app should NOT be able to leverage GPS, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi to approximate my location while running. I then ran my usual 3-mile route, and the Activity app seemed to be just as accurate in estimating distance (walking + running distance: 0.3 miles before my run, 3.3 miles after my run), presumably from the accelerometer and gyroscope data.
Since I was going to be away for the Independence Day weekend, I had shut down my 27-inch Late 2012 iMac and turned off the power strip/surge protector. This evening I turned on the power strip and then turned on my iMac only to be greeted a few seconds later with a kernel panic:
Here's a closer look:
After a successful restart, I launched the Mac OS X Console application but could not find the text of the kernel panic or any detailed logs (I assume the system was unable to generate a log since the system had never successfully booted). Anyone able to deduce any information from the information above?
I hope this is an isolated occurrence and not a sign of impending disaster for my iMac.
While using the Camera app on my iPhone 6 Plus today, I saw a little yellow triangle with an exclamation point on it. Curious as to what the issue was, I tapped the triangle and saw this message:
Perhaps it was because of this:
Fortunately I did not need to use the flash, but it's good to know that in extreme conditions certain functions on the iPhone may be disabled.
While those announcements may have made headline news, one of the new features of iOS 11 that I find most interesting will be a new file format for pictures called High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF). This new photo format will replace JPG on iPhone models that have an A9 processor, namely the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, the iPhone SE, and iPhone 7 and beyond. A technical overview is provided here. In summary, HEIF use cases include:
Storage of still images as well as collection of images in a single container file
Storage of burst photos
Storage and efficient representation of video animations and cinemagraphs
Support for simultaneous capture of video and still images, i.e. storing still images and timed image sequences into the same file
Storage of images derived from other images of the file, either as derived images represented by non-destructive image editing operations or as pre-computed derived images
Storage of focal and exposure stacks into the same container file
Support for storing other media, such as audio and timed text, into the same container file with timed image sequences and synchronizing their playback
HEIF files are based on the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF, a structure for time-based multimedia files) and and includes a rich set of features including storage of other media streams (e.g., timed text and audio). This allows HEIF files to utilize High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC or H.265) encoded media. Specs and features are also covered in blogs here and here as well as many others.
Aside from the higher efficiency of its storage capacity, HEIC is opening the door to various forms of computational photography--that is, images that are post-processed rather than optically captured. Video animations and cinemagraphs are a couple of examples provided above, but I wonder if high dynamic range (HDR) images will see additional improvements with HEIC. HDR is currently processed within the iPhone's Camera app with no user control over the output, but perhaps 3rd party apps will support bracketed images with 3, 5, or 7 (or more?) exposures that can be blended together with more manual controls for better capture of tonal range in HDR images. I guess time will tell.
I still prefer shooting with my DSLR because of its superior optics and greater number of options for images post-processing (particularly with RAW images) while remaining interested in how mobile phones are innovating with image capture and imaging post-processing.
There will be a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, and the moon's shadow will run west to east directly over the United States. If you like astronomy and/or photography, this is an event that you may not want to miss. To aid in your planning, here are some web sites that you might find useful:
Xavier Jubier's 2017 Total Eclipse Interactive Google Map. This web site provides detailed data about when the eclipse will start and end, depending on where you are. It also provides a visual indicator of the areas that will experience a total solar eclipse, as opposed to a partial solar eclipse.
Eclipse2017.org. This web site has a date countdown, offers an option to purchase eclipse glasses, and provides much more narrative descriptions of how to safely view the eclipse.
Preparing for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. This blog provides excellent considerations for photographing the eclipse, most of which is contained in an embedded YouTube video.
And just for fun, if you want to fly along with the moon's shadow for a virtual sneak peek of the eclipse, check out this video.
Finally, if you will be under the path of totality and plan to photograph the eclipse, you can be one of more than 1,000 photographers who can submit images to the Eclipse Megamovie Project so those media assets can be stitched together to create a continuous view of the eclipse as it passes over the United States.
I sell a variety of items on Craigslist, and generally the free service works very well. However, the other day I saw this message when trying to renew one of my posts:
craigslist users self-publish tens of millions of free postings each month, subject to the CL terms of use (TOU).
CL users flag postings they find to be in violation via the "prohibited" link at the top of each posting.
Free classified ads sufficiently flagged are subject to automated removal.
Postings may also be flagged for removal by CL staff or CL automated systems.
Millions of ads are removed by flagging monthly, nearly all of which violate the CL terms of use.
Of course no moderation system is perfect, and a small percentage of ads removed are compliant.
Flagged postings that comply with the TOU may be reposted, reworded as necessary.
For help from CL users regarding flagging, visit flag help forum, and follow the instructions there.
Funny or memorable postings may be nominated for "best of craigslist" via the "best-of" link.
My ad was for an iPad dock and had no offensive language, no links, or anything that I would interpret as "prohibited" according to Craigslist terms of use. You be the judge (the map and home address on the right have been obscured):
I can only conclude that either there is an error in Craigslist's automated system for flagging posts as inappropriate or someone manually flagged my post as inappropriate. In either case, I suppose there are opportunities to improve. If the automated system flagged my post as inappropriate, it would be interesting to know how that happened to such an innocuous post. If it was an individual who manually flagged my post as inappropriate, it would be nice if the owner of the post was notified and perhaps given a chance to dispute the feedback. If a 2nd or 3rd person flagged the post as inappropriate, then maybe at that point the user would have no recourse but to revise and repost. Overall, I still find Craigslist to be very valuable and still recommend it to others.
And by the way, does anyone want to buy an iPad 2 Dock for $10? 😀
When downloading email attachments, most people expect the filenames to be preserved. But with Yahoo Mail, you never know. For many months, I have experienced an intermittent problem where downloaded PDF attachments are renamed to "raw.pdf" as in the following example. The original filename is displayed in the tooltip:
After pressing the "Download" link, I get this file:
I miss Steve Jobs. When Steve was around, it felt to me like quality control at Apple was impeccable. Since his unfortunate passing, it seems to me that I experience a significantly greater number of errors in Apple software. They are typically minor issues, but they are ones that detract from Apple's top-notch user experience. Here's an example of what I saw today:
This occurred within an hour after I had updated all of my iOS apps, so these two updates were recently posted to the app store. There is an Apple Support site where you can find an iTunes error code, but it did not list error codes 8012 or -48, nor could I find much useful information via search engines. I did have a working internet connection, so I don't think that was the cause. After trying to download the app updates again, I was given more information:
Ah, so it seems like I was unable to download the app updates due to some kind of issue with the artwork. I tried to quit and relaunch iTunes, but I received the same errors. Later in the day, after several hours had passed, I was able to successfully download the app updates, so the problem resolved itself. But as I said before, these minor issues detract from the previously seamless user experience that was characteristic of the Apple ecosystem in the Steve Jobs era.
I have been using an OpenDNS server (127.0.0.54) via DNSCrypt for domain name resolution, and the other day I saw this after clicking on a link:
The blocked domain is part of the JAMA Network which is the umbrella organization that publishes a variety of high-quality peer-reviewed medical journals under the American Medical Association. JAMA publications are among the most reputable medical publications in healthcare, and I think the domain that was blocked is unlikely to be an actual phishing threat. Anyone know of reasons why OpenDNS might have reported it as such?
Yahoo Mail is a free email service which I like primarily for its 1 TB of storage capacity. I'm generally satisfied with Yahoo Mail--its ads are not too obtrusive, there are keyboard shortcuts to perform common actions like archiving emails, and its spam filter does a pretty good job (sometimes "a little too well" but that's another story). However, sometimes Yahoo Mail borders on annoying, and here is an example. Sometimes I come across an interesting story or video that I don't have time to read/watch at the moment, so I send myself the URL for future reference. When I use Yahoo Mail to send the URL, I get this message:
This occurs when the body contains only a URL, regardless of whether the subject line is populated. It doesn't occur every time I send just a URL, and I don't know how to predict when it will occur. I do appreciate Yahoo's efforts to prevent spam, but when preventive efforts impede regular non-abusive users from doing what they want to do, that's when usability has been compromised.
I realize that there are many examples of when the masses are inconvenienced to screen for a small minority of offenders. Airport security checkpoints and border inspections come to mind. But is the presence of spam email enough justification to disallow sending of URLs via email where there are a multitude of ways that email can be used to send spam and commit more serious forms of abuse? How about if emails were intercepted only if the URLs had a poor Web of Trust reputation or if the URL had been associated with phishing attempts for the purpose of identity theft?
With Yahoo Mail's current implementation of abuse prevention, a spammer simply needs to add some text in addition to the URL in the body of the email, and presto--Yahoo's preventive measures are bypassed. Surely there must be a better way to fight spam?
Digging deeper, here is the full report which shows the issue being related to reallocated bad sectors (the temperature changes were due to me copying a large number of files at the time):
I also ran DriveDx to compare results, and it also identified an issue related to reallocated bad sectors (the temperature change parameter is OK because I was not copying files at the time):
Interestingly, Apple Disk Utility did not seem to think that anything was wrong with my hard drive since it reports the S.M.A.R.T. status as Verified, and I ran this app while copying files so it seems to not have detected either the reallocated bad sectors or the temperature changes:
So my only point is that there may be some value in buying 3rd party S.M.A.R.T. utilities for their seemingly more in-depth analysis as well as real-time alerting. I suppose that the more lead time you have in your early warning system, the better.
So guess what I'm doing this weekend? As you can see from the temperature parameter on the TechTool Pro report, I'm busily backing up data before the drive fails entirely.
One of the benefits of having Apple accounts (via Apple ID) linked to all of our Apple devices (our family has 2 iMacs, a MacBook Pro, an Apple TV, 2 iPads, and 2 iPhones) is that we can be notified when and where someone is using our Apple ID. Well, hopefully that someone will the the rightful owner of the account, but if not, then you are given the option to disallow the login, change your password, and even force a signout from all linked devices.
Earlier tonight, I was using my Apple TV. Shortly thereafter, I saw the following prompt on my iMac:
I live in Los Angeles, and Tustin is approximately 50 miles from where I live. What would you have done? I thought that since I had just recently used my Apple TV, it could have been me (although I was not prompted to sign in to my Apple TV). However, it felt to me that location tracking via wifi should be accurate enough to at least pinpoint location to the correct city, and 50 miles seemed like too much of a margin of error to grant to location tracking. So to err on the side of caution, I clicked the "Don't Allow" button, changed my password, and forced all devices to sign out of my Apple ID.
When using my iPhone, I was asked to re-enter my Apple ID password since I had unceremoniously booted myself out moments before. Upon signing in, I received the same message on my iMac that my Apple ID was being used to sign in to a device near Tustin (I was still at home in Los Angeles). So on the bright side, I am pretty sure that my Apple ID had not been compromised. But on the other hand, come on Apple (I know you read my blog but won't admit it), you can do better with your location tracking–can you at least locate the device to the correct city? That would be nice, thank you.
I am often asked if it is possible to download videos from YouTube. The answer is yes, and there are several methods.
The first method is through web sites that provide this functionality. There are many free sites to choose from, and typically they simply involve you pasting the URL of the YouTube video into the site and then selecting the resolution of the video that you'd like to retrieve. The video is then downloaded to the default download directory that is specified in your web browser. Although I've used a couple of these kinds of sites, anecdotally I have heard rumors that some web sites that provide such services could be malicious, so generally I avoid them.
The second method is by installing one of several plugins or extensions to your browser. Some plugins work only for specific browsers, so again I defer to you to search for the proper solution. In my limited experience, some Safari and Firefox plugins did not work reliably, so I quickly abandoned this method.
The third method is to install one of several dedicated applications, and that is the focal point of this blog post. While I'm sure there are many high-quality applications that are inexpensive or free, I personally recommend 4K Video Downloader. This is what the Mac OS version looks like (there is a Windows version too):
Simply copy the URL from YouTube and paste it into the 4K Video Downloader app by pressing Command-V or pressing the "Paste Link" button. Depending on your settings, you may have to select a video resolution if you did not specify one by default.
I've used the Mac OS version of 4K Video Downloader for years, and I like it because...
Frequent Updates. Sometimes YouTube undergoes changes that impact the ability for all 3 methods to download videos. Generally the developers are very quick to update the app to resolve download issues.
Playlist Compatibility. YouTube videos can be grouped into playlists. Entering playlist URLs enable you to download the entire playlist. Entering the URL of a video within a playlist gives you the option to download that one video or the entire playlist. Pretty slick.
Multiple Formats. In addition to YouTube this application also supports downloads from Facebook, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Flickr, and others.
Trustworthy. I have not heard any issues about the application tracking usage or being used for any malicious reasons.
Freeware. Yes, the price is right. There are some ads, but they are unobtrusive. There is an activation option to remove ads, but the app is full-featured even without activation.
I cringe as I write this, but... Have you seen Apple's How to shoot on iPhone 7 video tutorials? While the focus is on photography with iPhone 7 (or in some cases iPhone 7 Plus), many of the tips are generalizable to other camera phones and even DSLRs, although actual methods may differ. Here is a full list of the tutorials:
Why do I cringe? Well, I've always believed (and still do) that the quality of photos from camera phones is far surpassed by that of DSLRs. However, these videos highlight some distinct advantages of the iPhone and probably camera phones in general: flexibility and creativity. For example, using the volume buttons to shoot a one-handed selfie is something that is specific to mobile phones. Shooting a group portrait with automatic depth of field enhancement is something that can only be done on a smartphone, at least in an automated fashion.
In other words, iPhonetography makes it easier for people to experiment with photography, and I guess that's the whole point of photography. Sometimes the barrier to entry to the DSLR world is too high, but I think it's better to have people shooting photos of lower quality (which most people probably don't even notice or care about) than not shooting at all. So... fire away!
