Anyone else notice the change to Screen time requests for kids?

[lordhamster]

My kids each have an iPad they use as their primary computing device. In order to incentivize them to get all their schoolwork done one time and correctly, we have all games on their devices locked down to 1 min a day (minimum possible by screentime). They can then request additional time from us which we grant on our phones.

It has always been a PITA because the notification would come in, you'd click it... then it took forever to load, you'd put in the passcode, then wait more, then grant the time.

Yesterday, I noticed the requests came in via iMessage for the first time... with convenient little dropdowns to allow us to instantly grant requests. My wife and I both got the text (as we are both marked as adults in the family group) I like this change. I'm just curious why I'm only seeing it now as I've had iOS 16 since beta 1. I'm on the normie version now though. Only thing I can think of is perhaps because my wife's macbook finally updated to Ventura yesterday... was last device on previous OS versions in our family.

That aside, I've got a laundry list of gripes about how this has always worked:

• I can't proactively just "open up" all apps for a specified time period. They have to request apps one by one.
• The timer seems to activate when they start playing, but if they turn off the ipads after starting, the timer still counts down... it isn't cumulative time but rather from the moment it is initiated.
• The options are too restrictive. I can grant 15 min, 1 hour, or all day.
• Each game allowed seems to have its own timer, rather than an aggregate time... as would make more sense in the context of "screen time"
• Previously accepting requests for more time was a PITA... this change I mention above helps enormously.

 

[Corgirat]

My kids each have an iPad they use as their primary computing device. In order to incentivize them to get all their schoolwork done one time and correctly, we have all games on their devices locked down to 1 min a day (minimum possible by screentime). They can then request additional time from us which we grant on our phones.

It has always been a PITA because the notification would come in, you'd click it... then it took forever to load, you'd put in the passcode, then wait more, then grant the time.

Yesterday, I noticed the requests came in via iMessage for the first time... with convenient little dropdowns to allow us to instantly grant requests. My wife and I both got the text (as we are both marked as adults in the family group) I like this change. I'm just curious why I'm only seeing it now as I've had iOS 16 since beta 1. I'm on the normie version now though. Only thing I can think of is perhaps because my wife's macbook finally updated to Ventura yesterday... was last device on previous OS versions in our family.

View attachment 2124275


That aside, I've got a laundry list of gripes about how this has always worked:

• I can't proactively just "open up" all apps for a specified time period. They have to request apps one by one.
• The timer seems to activate when they start playing, but if they turn off the ipads after starting, the timer still counts down... it isn't cumulative time but rather from the moment it is initiated.
• The options are too restrictive. I can grant 15 min, 1 hour, or all day.
• Each game allowed seems to have its own timer, rather than an aggregate time... as would make more sense in the context of "screen time"
• Previously accepting requests for more time was a PITA... this change I mention above helps enormously.

I hate the app requests come in messages now!!! I have to select each and delete them where previously I didn’t have to do this 😡

 

[fan232]

I hate the app requests come in messages now!!! I have to select each and delete them where previously I didn’t have to do this 😡

+1 completely hate it, what a bad user experience!

More than often request approvals don't work and my kid ends up request/spamming me and finally screams at me! Also multiple screen time requests mess-up the chat window history as all those requests take too long to load or are not able to load at all. This really makes messaging your own kid an inconvenience as the messages app becomes less responsive trying to load everything, see below, its insane!

PS. the above were originally approved, now they won't event load!

 

[PauloSera]

Wtf, it is much better having it as part of messages. It goes to both parents at the same time and enables both to see that the other has already responded and how, and its also much faster to respond that the previous method. How could anyone not like the massive improvement, lmao.

 

[Corgirat]

+1 completely hate it, what a bad user experience!

More than often request approvals don't work and my kid ends up request/spamming me and finally screams at me! Also multiple screen time requests mess-up the chat window history as all those requests take too long to load or are not able to load at all. This really makes messaging your own kid an inconvenience as the messages app becomes less responsive trying to load everything, see below, its insane!

View attachment 2130382
PS. the above were originally approved, now they won't event load!

And, I end up deleting all of conversation history with my children because it takes too long to delete the screen time requests. I hope this bother Apple employees with kids bad enough to do something about this.

 

[Corgirat]

Do

Wtf, it is much better having it as part of messages. It goes to both parents at the same time and enables both to see that the other has already responded and how, and its also much faster to respond that the previous method. How could anyone not like the massive improvement, lmao.

you like how your message thread bombarded with screen time requests? I don’t mind coming as messages, I just want them to go away soon after, or make it easier to delete them right away

 

[PauloSera]

Do

you like how your message thread bombarded with screen time requests? I don’t mind coming as messages, I just want them to go away soon after, or make it easier to delete them right away

No because it automatically goes to a group message with me and my wife which isn't used for anything else other than these messages.

 

[Corgirat]

No because it automatically goes to a group message with me and my wife which isn't used for anything else other than these messages.

So if both parents are assigned to have control over screen time, then it might create a group message for this. But I don’t have my husband control it because he’ll end up giving them too much screen time😣 so it comes in to me and my kids messages individually, combined with regular messages between us. It’s super annoying in this case.

 

[fan232]

Wtf, it is much better having it as part of messages. It goes to both parents at the same time and enables both to see that the other has already responded and how, and its also much faster to respond that the previous method. How could anyone not like the massive improvement, lmao.

My problem isn't that it's a part of messages, but more the fact that it hasn't been designed properly. In its current state it's more of a nuisance than before, for a lot of us it doesn't even work most of the time!

 

[Kaptajn Haddock]

Before this we both got notified on screen, so don't see the advantage of a group message.

 

[mlody]

Wtf, it is much better having it as part of messages. It goes to both parents at the same time and enables both to see that the other has already responded and how, and its also much faster to respond that the previous method. How could anyone not like the massive improvement, lmao.

well, for me, clogging the iMessage thread with these requests is not something I want to see. There is no need for me to reference the past approvals, so yeah, I hate the fact that Apple decided to accumulate these in the iMessage thread. Would you also like all your other notifications to end up in the iMessage thread too? Yeah, exactly, it is stupid.

 

[mlody]

My biggest issue with the new changes aside the fact that Apple dumps all the time requests into iMessage thread is the fact that neither my wife nor I can approve the time requests with Apple Watch. I can't believe that Apple approved these without doing basic testing to verify what it would seem a basic use case.

 

[Corgirat]

well, for me, clogging the iMessage thread with these requests is not something I want to see. There is no need for me to reference the past approvals, so yeah, I hate the fact that Apple decided to accumulate these in the iMessage thread. Would you also like all your other notifications to end up in the iMessage thread too? Yeah, exactly, it is stupid.

That’s exactly what I feel about it. I dont get to keep messages I exchange my kids anymore because it’s too much work trying to select and delete the screen time approvals there. I end up deleting the whole message thread. I really hate this change.

 

[random-sc-person]

It's a horrible horrible experience, but the least they could do would be to make it work.

• Not all of my devices are alerted
• Some devices don't receive / see the notifications at all
• The delay to receive the message is signaficant
• When I do get them, they take FOREVER to render and just sit and spin for sometimes 60+ seconds

20+ year software engineer here... ScreenTime is so horrible, the parental controls are so lacking, you would have to bribe me to make me believe that Apple isn't making this experience so bad on purpose. They don't want parental controls to get in the way of their device & content and your kid. They want you to become frustrated and just disable it. It takes extra work to make something this bad.