YouTube for Kids Debuts on iPhone and iPad - is it Better Than Regular App for Kids?

Parents were able to find cartoons on the regular YouTube app, but now Google, the owner of the video sharing website, has released YouTube Kids, a new app for the video sharing site focused on enabling children to discover content for themselves.

The new app provides children and families with a kid-friendly portal to discover and explore videos about anything they can possibly imagine. The family-focused content is appropriate for children and broken down into four categories: Shows, Music, Learning and Explore.

The free YouTube Kids app includes videos from Jim Henson Co., Mother Goose Club, DreamWorks Animation, National Geographic Kids, Hit Entertainment and others. Videos available in the app shows include "Sesame Street," "Fraggle Rock," "Thomas the Tank Engine," "Reading Rainbow," "Talking Tom and Friends," "TuTiTu" and YouTube channel "Super Simple Songs."

"For years, families have come to YouTube, watching countless hours of videos on a variety of topics," Google VP of engineering Pavni Diwanji and YouTube Kids group product manager Shimrit Ben-Yair wrote in a blog post Monday. "In the new YouTube Kids app on Android and iOS, videos are narrowed to focus on content that is appropriate for the whole family."

The app is designed to be easy for kids to use, with a "brighter and bigger interface that's perfect for small thumbs and pudgy fingers," said Diwanji and Ben-Yair.

YouTube Kids is available now for iPhone and iPad for free. It's currently only in the US App Store. There's no word yet on when it will be made available internationally.