Yes, you heard it right. It is possible to allow safe and filtered access to YouTube on the iPhone & iPod Touch. This tutorial will walk through the setup, step by step. Click here for the iPad version of this tutorial.
1. Disable the native YouTube app
The first step is to disable the native YouTube app on the device and ensure that Mobicip's Safe Browser is the only way to access YouTube.com on the device. The following is an exerpt from the tutorial on How to Setup Parental Controls on iPhone & iPod Touch (iOS4 Edition). If you haven't setup Restrictions on the device before, follow the instructions in the tutorial above first before worrying about YouTube.
From the home screen, select Settings > General.
Select Restrictions
Enter a 4-digit passcode. Make sure you remember this passcode, in case you need to change these settings.
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You will see the restrictions screen. Set YouTube to OFF on this screen.
2. Enable YouTube through Mobicip
If you have a non-Premium Mobicip.com account, simply login at www.mobicip.com and change your filtering level to High School. At this time, only High School level allows access to YouTube.com for non-Premium users.
If you have a Premium subscription, you can setup filtered access to YouTube regardless of your filtering level.
- Visit www.mobicip.com, and select Settings > Categories.
- Click on Entertainment/Games to expand the category.
- If the YouTube sub-category is checked, it means YouTube is currently being blocked. Uncheck this sub-category.
- Now scroll down this page and click on the YouTube category.
- To block specific YouTube content, check the box for that sub-category.
NOTE: Please remember to click the Save button at the top of the page to save your settings.
That is it! Now launch the Mobicip Safe Browser on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You will see something like the screenshot below where specific YouTube videos are being filtered by Mobicip.
25 Comments
e-mail
Submitted by Guest on
The YouTube filtering is maybe nice to some, but how about selecting a link in an e-mail? Some us use our iPhone as a business tool, and have the filter on to keep the internet clean. I know that I can copy and paste, but being able to click on the link in the e-mail would sure be handy.
Re: email
Submitted by mobicipp on
We understand the frustration, but Apple's iPhone SDK doesn't allow third-party apps to be launched from other apps. Actually, their documentation suggests a method to make this work, and we have implemented it already. But due to a bug or some other unknown reason, this documented feature is not working. Other app developers have been complaining about this as well, and we expect Apple to start supporting this in their next major OS update.
Mobicip Support
Videos are still blocked
Submitted by Guest on
I unchecked You Tube under the entertainment category, unchecked everything in the list of categories under You Tube and still can not see any pages on You Tube using MobiCip
Re: Videos are still blocked
Submitted by mobicipp on
We are extremely sorry for the trouble you are having. Please note that it may take 30-45 minutes for the changes you made on the web monitor to reflect on the device. We suspect that this issue should have resolved by itself now. If not, can you please send an email to Mobicip Support including your Mobicip-registered email id and we will investigate this issue asap.
You Tube Filter
Submitted by Guest on
I followed the instructions above and tried using the filter for You Tube but the site is still blocked on my daughter's iTouch.
Re: You Tube Filter
Submitted by mobicipp on
We are extremely sorry for the trouble you are having. Please note that it may take 30-45 minutes for the changes you made on the web monitor to reflect on the device. We suspect that this issue should have resolved by itself now. If not, can you please send an email to Mobicip Support including your Mobicip-registered email id and we will investigate this issue asap.
THANKÂ YOU, THANKÂ YOU,
Submitted by Guest on
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!
I'm not certain if this is even the proper place to say THANK YOU to y'all but I just set my son's iTouch up to filter You Tube and now feel like he can have safe access to it! THANK YOU for writting the program to do so and for the super clear and easy directions so I could set his iTouch up to filter You Tube!
Thanks! It was easy. Now my
Submitted by Guest on
Thanks! It was easy. Now my son can watch cats flushing toliets.
You Tube Settings
Submitted by Guest on
The sub-categories under the You Tube options do not block for the areas I primarily want to block - pornography and violence. Any solutions? Thanks
Re: You Tube Settings
Submitted by mobicipp on
The sub-categories under the Youtube category are based on the Categories provided by Youtube on their website. Youtube does not have separate categories for pornography and violence. But please note that our dynamic filtering engine will make sure that inappropriate videos are blocked based on the descriptive content on the video page. You don't have to worry about such videos being viewed on the Mobicip Safe Browser. If you would like to have the option to allow such categories, then send us an email to Mobicip Support and we can help you with the setup.
Mobicip Support
Can't save settings
Submitted by Guest on
I'm a non-premium user. Filtering set to High School. Followed these simple instructions and yet I am unable to SAVE. Hit save and nothing happens.
Re: Can't save settings
Submitted by mobicipp on
We are sorry for the trouble you are having. The instructions in the tutorial that brings up customizing the categories is part of Mobicip's premium subscription. Please note that Youtube will be filtered even if you do not have a premium subscription. It is just that you won't be able to make changes to the Youtube categories that are allowed/blocked for each level.
Mobicip Support
Jail Break?
Submitted by Guest on
A friend of my son's taught him how to "Jail Break" his ipod Touch which deleted all his old apps and added many more than he had before. Mobicip was deleted from his device. He tried to "un-jailbreak" it but it didn't work. Now there is no filter. Please advise on how to avoid Mobicip being deleted.
Re: Jail Break?
Submitted by mobicipp on
We are sorry for the trouble you are having. We suggest that you upgrade the software on your device to the latest version asap. The reason is that Apple has added enhanced parental control options that will make it difficult for a user to delete Mobicip. iOS 4.2 includes an option to prevent the deletion of apps installed by the parent or administrator. If you haven't upgraded already, please do so now through the following link
http://content.mobicip.com/content/apple-announces-ios-42-new-parental-control-options
Please let us know if this answers your concern. Otherwise we will be happy to assist further.
Mobicip Support
No You Tube search bar
Submitted by Guest on
Everything is set up exactly as you describe and the screen looks like the one shown above but the problem is that there is no You Tube search bar. All that comes up are the most viewed videos. How do I find what I want to watch without a search?
Re: No You Tube search bar
Submitted by mobicipp on
We are sorry for the trouble you are having. We were not able to reproduct this issue on our end. If you do not see the search textbox, you should see a 'Search' symbol on the top right corner of the youtube homepage. Can you please check and let us know if you can see the symbol. If you can see it, please click on it to bring up the search textbox. Also, can you please let us know if you are using Mobicip on a Windows or an Apple device?
Please send us a note to Mobicip Support if the problem persists and we will investigate the issue further.
Mobicip Support
No search option on Youtube
Submitted by Guest on
I have same issue as other user. Accessing YouTube through Mobicip browser. Only shows a list of perhaps 15 choices with no ability to search for other content. I am using basic, not premium Mobicip service.
Re: No search option on Youtube
Submitted by mobicipp on
We are extremely sorry for the trouble you are having. We have requested our dev team to look into this issue since we are not able to reproduce it on our end. Can you please let us know the device that you are using (iPod Touch or iPad) and the version of our app on the device? Also, can you please let us know if you can see the 'search' symbol on the top right corner when you type 'youtube.com' and the webpage gets automatically redirected to 'm.youtube.com'?
If you could send an email to Mobicip Support from your Mobicip-registered email id, it will help us investigate the issue faster.
Mobicip Support
Trying to decide on Premium...
Submitted by Guest on
I just downloaded the iPod version of Mobicip, then I tried it with Youtube and some Mario Bros bloopers weren't blocked at all. Those are the main reason I bought Mobicip, but I need to be sure if I could block those Youtube videos before paying for the Premium version.
Please let me know if there's a better option than just blocking by category (Mario Bros bloopers are in "Comedy", and that's the same category as animal funniest videos, which I consider kids-safe).
Thanks.
Re: Trying to decide on Premium...
Submitted by Gita on
We are sorry for the trouble you are having. We checked the videos you mentioned and found that the characters in the videos use inappropriate words. Please note that Mobicip filters YouTube by reviewing the title, description, comments and other meta information associated with each video. In most cases, the publisher would include suggestive words and phrases with the video and it would be blocked by Mobicip. However, there are instances where the text associated with the video itself is ok but the content is not acceptable. This is where Mobicip's filter does not work effectively. Mobicip is the only filtering product that offers YouTube filtering on a video-by-video basis. However, catching inappropriate videos with no descriptive content is extremely difficult and almost impossible at this time. Like any filtering product, Mobicip filters the content on a best effort basis and goes beyond most other products in terms of the quality of filtering. However, technology only goes so far and it takes active parental supervision to create a completely safe Internet environment.
We have requested our dev team to look into this issue and check if the search results for the keyword 'Mario Bros Bloopers' can be completely blocked at all three levels of filtering. We will keep you posted on any updates regarding this. If you can please let us know your Mobicip-registered email id, we can create a support ticket on your behalf and send the update to your email address. We appreciate your patience as we work on fixing this issue.
Enhanced filtering idea
Submitted by tnt on
Gita, I am not yet a subscriber but while researching mobi I had an idea.I posted it on Sat 9/24 under the technical forums.Please let me know what you guys at mobi think. If you have any questions, or if you think it's possible. Please let me know either way. THX.
Specific YouTube Videos?
Submitted by Guest on
I was trying to set up my child's setting so that he can only see specific YouTube videos. I used the whitelist "only" option, but it seems to be letting all YouTube videos play (the ones that would not have been stopped by Mobicip's own filters). Does the whitelist restrict based on domain (ex:youtube.com) or can it restrice more specifically (ex:youtube.com/specific_video_##_etc ) I have the paid version. Thank you!
Re: Specific YouTube Videos?
Submitted by Gita on
We sincerely apologize for the delay in responding to your query. Please note that our whitelist-only mode is based on the primary domain name and once you add a specific domain name to your whitelist, all the sub-pages within the domain will be allowed. But if a link on a page takes you to a different domain, then the new domain will need to be whitelisted.
Regarding allowing specific Youtube videos, we suggest that you un-check the Youtube category of the video on the Categories pages in your Settings tab and the videos that are in that specific category will be allowed. Please note that the categories are chosen by the Youtube user who uploaded the video and so, they may not be entirely correct at times.
Please let us know if this answers your question. Otherwise, we will be happy to assist further.
Mobicip Support
Youtube Alternative icon?
Submitted by Guest on
Hi, I just bought your product and I was hoping it would work hand in hand with the youtube icon... Being we are removing the icon from the ipod I wish functionality was still there for youtube... any sugesstions?
Re: Youtube Alternative icon?
Submitted by Gita on
We apologize for the confusion caused. Please note that Mobicip's filter works only on the Mobicip Safe Browser and not on any other apps available on the device including Safari/Youtube. While we would like to make our filtering service work with other apps on the device, Apple does not allow us to create software that runs in the background. Hence, we had to create our own browser to provide filtered internet access. Please note that this is the case with any other internet filter available for Apple's mobile devices.
This is the reason why we recommend our users to disable/delete all other browser apps available/downloaded onto the device and make Mobicip as the only window available for filtered internet access.
So, for filtered Youtube content, you need to access Youtube website through Mobicip. Please be assured that the functionality will be the same.
Please let us know if this answers your concern. Otherwise we will be happy to assist further.
Mobicip Support
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