YouTube’s iPhone app includes closed captions

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Wednesday, 12 September 2012 12:54pm

Google has beaten Apple in the accessibility stakes by releasing its own YouTube app for the iPhone which includes a host of new features, including support for closed captions. 

The YouTube app which currently comes inbuilt in iPhones and iPads is made by Apple, and only features a tiny sample of the service’s vast video collection. The new app increases the number of videos available to mobile users and allows them to search for closed caption videos, a feature previously unavailable in the Apple version of the app. In addition to enabling closed caption search, the app also includes a 'voice search' feature, which means users can use their voice instead of typing to search.

Developed in just under a month, the app also makes it easier to find videos and share them across social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

How to search for closed caption videos:

  1. Tap the magnifier symbol on the top right-hand corner to search.
  2. In the search field, type the name of the video you're looking for.  A series of search results will be listed. From here you can filter your search to closed caption videos only.
  3. Tap the gear symbol to the right of the Channels button
  4. In Search Options, scroll down to Features and select ‘closed captions’. This means that only videos with closed captions will appear in search results.

How to turn on captions:

  1. Turn the iPhone on its side so that the video plays in landscape view
  2. Tap the ’CC’ button at the bottom left of the screen

The app is further indication of Google’s growing support for closed captioning across its products. YouTube recently added functionality to let video owners fix automatic captions, opening the door for more videos with readable, meaningful captions to be made available online.

The new Google-made YouTube iPhone app is available free from the iTunes store. While it will work on iPads, there is currently a dedicated tablet version of the app in development.

Information on captioned video across the web is available in our new video section.  A full description of Google’s YouTube app is available on Mashable.

Media Access Australia’s accessibility testers are currently reviewing the app’s accessibility for screen reader users.


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