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htmliossafariyoutubequicktime

Launch embedded YouTube videos in Quicktime on iOS

We have a requirement to embed videos on a website aimed for Children and would prefer to use a video hosting service.

The likes of YouTube allows for an embedded player to be stripped of chrome and, importantly, the recommended videos displayed after a video ends.

This is important to protect a child from browsing unsuitable content after they have watched the video.

However when viewing a video in iOS, the native YouTube player is launched which has no such child-safe measures.

  1. Can the native YouTube app be overridden and the Quicktime player launched instead?
  2. Is there another video hosting service that provides child-safe hosting?
  3. If we're looking at a self-hosted solution, are there any recommended cross-browser players that take iOS and Android native players into account?

Remember the key requirements are:

  • Allow a child to view a video embedded in a web site;
  • Protect a child from accessing unsuitable video content.
Solution

  • Video sharing sites that are completely child-safe are rare but check out 'KidsTube'. It's being actively monitored.

    You could also use a HTML5 fallback for mobile safari, it will use the default HTML5 mediaplayer in mobile safari. As demonstrated by Ben Barnett.

    There might be standalone HTML5 mediaplayers that supports YouTube. YouTube itself has it's own instructions to embed HTML5 videos, but i'm not sure if mobile safari is supported (Info).