My kids have a serious iPhone habit, and yes, I suppose you could call me the ultimate enabler since the kidcentric apps on my devices vastly outnumber the ones meant to help adults make a decent mixed drink (ahem). And then there’s YouTube.
Both kids have really taken an interest lately since discovering an endless supply of Curious George and Thomas clips, but I’m not too excited about it. Not a newsflash, but there’s way too much questionable stuff on there they should never see.
DuckyTube takes care of those fears with an app that prevents little and even not-so-little kids from viewing the unsavory stuff. Touted as the “safe YouTube,” I think it has three awesome things the big site doesn’t:
It’s mom-created (yep, she has iPhone addicts at her house, too), which means an intuitive interface. There’s also true parental control; since parents choose which vids to add, and kids can’t add or delete (hooray!), there’s no concern of clicks heading into salty territory. Everything is self-contained, too, so there’s no need to leave the app or enter passwords. All controls are hidden in the long grass at the bottom of the screen.
Set-up is easy, especially if you already have a list of favorite videos. Just lift and hold the grass up to access the toolbar, then search and click to add your picks straight from YouTube. Keep in mind that picks will not sync across devices however, which is kind of a bummer, but not a deal breaker for me.
Though it’s designed for iPhone, I downloaded this app to my iPad. Just a click of the 2x button maxes the video, doesn’t affect quality, and let’s both my kids watch together. -Pilar
I visited this page because it promised funny videos appropriate for young children, and at bottom there is a headline, “10 Essential Things About Sex I Want My Daughters to Know.” How am I supposed to explain that to our reading 6-year-old???? Totally poor placement of that teaser. Boo.