The new YouTube Kids app we mentioned yesterday is now here and, in a pleasant surprise, it’s available for both Android and iOS.
Whether kids or parents will actively download this instead of using the current YouTube app (complete with rather dodgy content that may or may not be age restricted) is another matter. If you’ve got an Android device, go this way, while iOS owners need to go here for the app.
As you can see from the screenshots, there’s lots of full-length kid-friendly shows and episodes to go through. As usual, it’s a free app download. The YouTube people tell us..
We’ve taken out the complicated stuff and made an app even little ones can navigate — that means big buttons, easy scrolling, and instant full-screen.
Kids can enjoy favorites like Sesame Street, Thomas & Friends, and Dreamworks, online hits like Mother Goose Club, TuTiTu, and Super Simple Songs, plus anything else they’re into — music, gaming, science, crafts, and more.
Parental controls are available, but yet again it looks like YouTube is offloading some of the responsibility to parents by adding a notification system should you see anything “questionable” in the app. The search system uses “a mix of input from our users and automated analysis to categorize and screen out the videos that make parents nervous”.
It’s not going to be perfect by the looks of it, but it’s a whole load better than some of the death / carnage / horror / war / swearing and other related rubbish your kids can easily stumble on with the standard YouTube app.