YouTube Kids, is YouTube's version for a child-friendly app.
Launched in 2015, it has been racking up more than 70 billion views with its more than 11 million active weekly viewers in 37 countries.
To make experience better, the app is introducing a refreshed design that should go well with its young audience. But notably, the update adds several new features designed to reflect the app's now aging user base.
For example, YouTube Kids enables parents to tailor the viewing experience for their children using profiles. With this feature, the app can change its interface based on the child's age (based on date of birth). For example, less text for younger kids, and more text for older ones.
Other feature included, is allowing kids to set their own passwords to keep other children, or siblings, from messing up with their profiles. Of course, parents can always override this security measure.
This should be useful not only for parents with multiple kids, but also because YouTube Kids itself, by default, looked like an app that was designed more for preschoolers than the school-age children.
Parents can also sign in with their Google account in order to create customizable profiles for their child or children.
The app also introduces a redesigned setup process for parents that includes more detailed information to help them make the right decision related to the parental control options, as well as to be more informed about the app in general.
For example, a longer intro explains to parents that YouTube does not manually review the videos in YouTube Kids. This should inform parents that there is still a chance that something inappropriate could get through its automated filters. It details how parents can block and report the videos that slip through its algorithms.
A final setup screen offers a longer explanation as to why parents may want to turn search on or off, allowing parents to better understand the risks.
"Remember our systems work hard to filter out more mature content from the app. But no system is perfect," said Balaji Srinivasan, the YouTube Kids engineering director.
YouTube Kids is packed with fun music and curated selections of kid-appropriate content from publishers like DreamWorks TV, Jim Henson TV, Mother Goose Club, Talking Tom and Friends, National Geographic Kids, Reading Rainbow and Thomas the Tank Engine, and more.
While YouTube Kids came under fire in the past for not fully locking down the original YouTube experience which have contents that aren't suitable for younger audience, overall, YouTube Kids app that is designed with a simpler interface than the original, is still a safer way to allow kids to browse YouTube, even with its restricted more turned on.
In other words, YouTube Kids is still definitely safer for kids, while not a 100 percent. The update is aims to make it better than just "good enough."