YouTube can be a real concern for parents when handing their smartphones or tablets over to a child. One minute they’re looking at innocuous giraffe videos, and the next they’ve followed a related-videos link to something less suitable.
Some apps are trying to turn YouTube back into a safe environment for children. One new example being FirstVideo for YouTube and Netflix. As its name implies, it also works with streaming TV/films service Netflix.
The developers have chosen more than 20 child-friendly YouTube channels and added them to FirstVideo as subscriptions. As a parent, you can dive in and add more (or take the default ones away), tweaking the lineup to suit.
It works in the same way for Netflix: currently 10 children’s TV shows have been chosen, with more to be added. You’ll need to be a Netflix subscriber for your children to watch them, obviously.
The idea here is that the app is easy enough for a child to use alone, without requiring a parent to monitor them.
Netflix already has a Just For Kids section, although it hasn’t yet gone live in the company’s mobile and tablet apps. YouTube certainly benefits from the idea of child-centred curation though.
FirstVideo for YouTube and Netflix costs 69p on the App Store, and is a universal app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
RT @AppsPlayground: Make YouTube safe for your child with FirstVideo app: http://t.co/EFnWMcPg cc @tantrumapps
RT @AppsPlayground @tantrumapps Make YouTube safe for your child with FirstVideo app: http://t.co/QlM7dR0p
Make YouTube safe for your child with FirstVideo app: YouTube can be a real concern for parents… http://t.co/THWTQq1v #app #ipad #kids
I downloaded this app bc it was supposed to provide SAFE content, but there were “F” words in Angry Birds videos!!!!!
Hi Judi, thanks for letting us know about that - it doesn’t sound good at all! Do you know the name of the video? If so, let us know, and we’ll follow up with the developers.
Just downloaded this as I found my 7yr old boy had searched “s-e-x” on YouTube, but when I did a test on this app by searching the same words all inappropriate videos still came up. Is there some sort of setting I need to enable?
Hi Natalie,
Thanks for getting in touch - sorry to hear you are having trouble getting this app to work, our best suggestion would be to contact the developer, Tantrum Apps. You can contact them via their website here: http://tantrumapps.com/about/ We hope you can get this issue resolved, and do let us know how you get on.
The team at Apps Playground