Ever since the first iPhone came out on June 29, 2007, the iPhone series have been in an untouchable dominating position in the smartphone industry worldwide. As a popular smartphone as such, iPhone is expected to be solid, secure, and easy to use. However, if you are one of the new members who have just join the iPhone club, you should have discovered that with an iPhone, even the easiest activity like playing an AVI video has become tricky. The AVI should be one of the most compatible video formats, but why the 1200 dollars’ worth iPhone cannot play a single AVI video? Before you start to think that iPhone is not worth it, let me tell you that the AVI files actually can be played with iPhone, you just to have to find a right way to do it. If you are going through a confusion about how to play an AVI video with iPhone, you are in the right place. Because today we are going to talk about why can’t you play AVI on iPhone, and various ways to successfully play your AVI video with your iPhone. Every method we introduce here is easy, time saving and iPhone 8/X compatible, so you don’t have to worry about going through a lot of trouble to play AVI on iPhone.

Part 1: Why can't you play AVI on iPhone

The reason for your iPhone to not be able to play a video could be various. But the first thing to consider when you encounter this kind of problem, is the format compatibility. According to Apple official support, the supported media format includes: Apple Animation Codec, Apple Intermediate Codec, Apple ProRes, AVCHD, AVC-ULTRA, DV, DVCPRO HD, H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC), HDV, iFrame, Motion JPEG, MPEG IMX, QuickTime, XDCAM HD/EX/HD422, XF-AVC. And the supported container format includes: 3GP, AVI, MOV (QuickTime), MP4, MTS/M2TS, MXF.

play-avi-on-iphone-error

As you can see, being a supported container format, AVI is supposed to be able to be played by your iPhone. But if you still have problem playing the AVI file with your iPhone, it could be one of the following reasons: One, the file is damaged. In this case, there is no other solutions but redownloading the file and then try playing it again. Two, the media format. As you can see from above, AVI is just a container format. The video could be coded by an unsupported media format which cannot be handled by iPhone. In this case, you can either convert your video file to another format which is supported by iPhone, or use a better media player to replace the default player.

Now we see the reasons why you can’t play AVI on iPhone, let’s get to the details and see how to play your AVI on iPhone with different approaches.

Part 2: Play AVI on iPhone with Leawo Video Converter

As mentioned above, there are two approaches to make your AVI playable on your iPhone. One is to convert the file to another supported file, the other is to use a different media player. Comparing to using a different media player, converting your file to another format is more recommended because you can’t always make sure the new video player you download supports your video, but you can always have a better flexibility and better control over your file when converting it to another format.

Although there are multiple ways to convert a video file to another, the most recommended and reliable way to convert and play your AVI on iPhone is to use a program called Leawo Video Converter. Leawo Video Converter is a powerful and multi-functional media converter. It supports more than 180 different formats as both input and output, and can best retain the quality of the converted file. Besides having a promising converting function, Leawo Video Converter also features advanced video editing functions like converting 2D videos to 3D, trimming, cropping, adjusting, removing noise and more.

Converting AVI with Leawo Video Converter is easy. Here are the detailed steps on how to convert the AVI with Leawo Video Converter so that you can play AVI on iPhone.

Step 1: Download and install Leawo Video Converter

Launch Leawo Video Converter on your computer and then enter the main interface of the program, switch to “Convert” tab, and click “Add Video” icon on the top bar, or directly drag and drop your file into the main interface to import source AVI video file.

import

Step 2: Select output format profile

Open the drop-down box right beside the big green “Convert” button and then click the “Change” button to enter the “Profile” panel, where you could select a proper profile as output format. To convert AVI to iPhone video, you could select “MP4″ or “MOV” as output format from “Format” group.

import

Step 3: Further editing

When the output format is selected, you will be brought back to the media list, where you can directly start converting your video. But before you click on the big green “Convert” button on main interface to start converting, you can click the “edit” button right side of your imported media to do some editing to it.

edit-button

On the editing panel, you can see all of the editing available listed at the left bar. You can do trimming, cropping, adding watermark, adding 3D effects, adjusting picture and removing noise. Once you are done editing, click “OK” to get back to the media list, where you can proceed to converting your video.

edit

Step 4: Start converting

Once you click the green “Convert” button mentioned above, a conversion setting panel will be called out. On the panel you need to set a directory to store your converted file. Once you designate a target directory, click the “Convert” button below to start converting your AVI video file.

output

Part 3: Play AVI on iPhone with online converter

Besides converting AVI with Leawo Video Converter, you can also convert your file with an online converting service. What’s good about online converting services is that you don’t need to download any third-party programs to convert your file. Simply go to the webpage, upload the AVI file, choose a desired output format and download the converted file after the conversion is done. The most popular online converter is called Online Video Converter V3.0.

online-converter

The disadvantage of online converting services is also obvious. If your video file is large, it’s going to take a long time to upload the file, and then take a long time again to download the file. Also, the output quality can not be counted on. This approach is good only if you are converting small files and are not demanding on the conversion quality.

Part 4: Play AVI on iPhone with QuickTime

As mentioned above, if you don’t want to tweak your original video file, you can always turn to a reliable video player for iPhone to make your AVI videos playable on your iPhone. There are a lot of media players that support AVI, and above everything else, I want to recommend QuickTime player as it’s an official media player produced by Apple.

quicktime

The way you can play your AVI file with QuickTime Player could be a little tricky, but still promising. Although QuickTime is a player that’s only available for Windows and Mac OS, you can always play your AVI video from your Mac, and then share the screen from Mac to iPhone. With this approach, you don’t need to worry about not just AVI, but a lot of other video formats because you are actually processing the video through your Mac, which has a more powerful media processing ability than the iPhone.

Part 5: Play AVI on iPhone with iTunes

Playing AVI on iPhone using QuickTime requires you keeping both iPhone and Mac working at the same time. If you want to save the trouble and only play the AVI on your iPhone, you can use some help of the iTunes.

itunes

By syncing your AVI video to your iTunes account from other platforms, you can access the video anywhere with your iPhone afterwards. This way you don’t need to worry about needing to keep your Mac on, and don’t need to worry about the file being damaged as well because you would be directly getting the video file from the Internet. The flaw of this approach is obvious: you need to rely on a WIFI connection to make it happen.

Part 6: Play AVI on iPhone with VLC

Finally, there is a way for everyone. If you don’t want to convert your file, don’t want to share screen from Mac, and don’t want to get file from iTunes as well, that’s fine. You can download the VLC player, install it on your iPhone, and directly play the AVI file on iPhone.

vlc

VLC player is a cross-platform media player that can handle most of the video formats. By installing VLC player, you make not only AVI, but also various other video formats playable on your iPhone. However, as mentioned earlier, the reason for iPhone not being able to play a video file could be various and complicated. There are cases that VLC player also fails to play an AVI player and you’ll need to try a VLC Player alternative. So, if you’re lucky enough, you might be able to play AVI on iPhone with VLC Player. But if you want a more reliable approach, the Leawo Video Converter way is still recommended the most.