Hi all,
How on earth can I prevent my son from changing the passcode if I tell him what the passcode is to get into the iPod? I'm setting up an iPod I got him for Christmas, setting up all the restrictions, etc. And I noticed one funny thing, restrictions does not have an option to enter the restriction code to change the passcode, or am I missing something?
I know its pretty self explanatory, but I just spent 30 minutes going to every corner of Settings, so I figured I'd finally ask.
The feature you are looking for should be extremely easy for Apple to implement and I have no idea why they will not do it. As the "guy who knows how to do all that computer stuff" I end up taking care of all the issues for friends and family.
Since you are just speculating about what your child "might" do, you do not know all the REAL perils out there. Everyone here who suggested you are lacking in parental skills can just go away. You were not asking for advice on how to parent your child, but instead, a way to use technology to completely avoid the potential issue. Do these people give their children a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and tell them not to smoke???? There are plenty of other ways to teach your children responsibility without the added hassle of all the time and work that goes into resetting an IOS device. Especially when it was never set up with iTunes in the first place.
Here are the REAL issues with this lack of a restriction. I have had this happen multiple times. Three times, a friends child changed the passcode on their iPod, and FORGOT IT. And yes, they really did forget it because they were the one that entered the wrong passcode in until it LOCKED. It wasn't a case of the parent locking it trying to guess the child's passcode. The first time it took me several hours to figure out how to restore the device especially since it had never been backed up to iTunes. The child was then told NOT to use a passcode at all, but eventually did it again and forgot again. The second time, was quicker since I had done it recently. After that time the parental skills were applied, but a year later it happened again. The discipline as suggested, was enforced, and the child ended up not having an iPod for 6 months. She had it, but couldn't use it because it was locked. Then I was asked to do it again and had to research the fix due to the time that had passed. In case you don't know, the only way to do this is to RESET the device which forces any IOS update to happen at the same time, so now you have to wait for a 1.5 GB download to happen. Also, the instructions are horrible. The device tells you the iPod is locked and to connect to iTunes, but when you do it is not clear what you do next and if you try to restore it, iTunes tells you to "respond on the phone to allow access" which is of course impossible. So iTunes doesn't even know it is connected to a locked device.
Then there is my elderly mother who was having trouble accessing the internet on her iPad and was convinced the problem was that she wasn't being prompted for her passWORD. So she tinkered around in the settings and clicked on "add a passCODE" (she didn't have one before that) and used the iPad until it asked for the passcode. She entered it in wrong multiple times. Waited the allotted time each time it timed out, and eventually locked it. It had also never been backed up to iTunes. My sister who lives on the other side of the country, bought it for her and said "it's so easy to use" and before I had a chance to get involved, she was already using it, so I didn't bother jumping in and insisting on all those "dumb nerd things" that the geniuses out there think we just do to try and prove we know something. And then what I mentioned above happened. No iTunes backup. Locked device. And the best part of all for those of us who "fix" these issues........the "What happened?" question, always followed by the denials "I didn't do that" or "Why do they let you do that????" I DON'T KNOW MOM. I DIDN'T WRITE IOS........ And the icing on the cake, "Where is all my stuff???" and my favorite "Where are all MY YouTube videos?" "I don't know mom, maybe you erased YouTube in the process???????"
By the way, it turns out that the initial problem was that she turned on airplane mode which was why she couldn't get on the internet in the first place. By the time she called me, she had already locked it.
And all this could be solved by adding a restriction on changing or adding a passcode. Some things are a necessary evil, but I can't for the life of me figure out why this lack of restriction would be necessary........
