Apple Acknowledges Screen Time Bug, Promises Further Improvements

[Ahmamies]

Most of the time the approvals I do from my watch do not work. Then they suddenly work for a day or so. On my Mac they never work.

On my iPhone they seem to work always. Although I really hate the fact that they are now approved from messages. That was so stupid change.

 

[ninecows]

It’s really bad. It didn’t prevent my 7 year old daughter from finding hard core porn (and she was at it for weeks on numerous websites), but it did block her from searching for pictures from “Alvin and the Chipmunks”. Parents be warned!

 

[roland.g]

Screen Time as an implementation and system is a joke. Any parent expecting Screen Time to help them manage their kids usage and to monitor it, actually needs to get a 3rd party paid service to do that because Screen Time has so many work arounds that kids can do what they want anyway. And Apple has no interest in improving it or actually fixing the issues. This article is about a bug, but regardless none of the recent iOS releases incl. the upcoming 17 have addressed or likely will address the known loopholes.

 

[rotvaldi]

The screen has a weird bug that affects some words and sentences on many apps. The words are brighter than normal and not one talks about, the proper way to see the bug is hold and pulse the Apple Music player the bar and shines so bad that seems an screen issue hdr or something, but when you take a screenshot it’s normal so it’s an issue of the screen

 

[furou]

Great, they acknowledged auto correct is awful and worked to fix it, now Screen Time.
Hopefully next are the glitchy Notification Center and the awful wallpaper picker UI.

 

[JH101]

Glad I readthis article, as kept wondering why this kept turning off grrrrrr! Previously my kid had android, and this feature is so much better on Android. Come on apple, this kind of feature is really important, fix it.

 

[bilbo84]

There is so much more wrong with screen time than just this bug. 100% it needs a major overhaul and not just a single bug fix.

 

[0339327]

I don't envy the position that Apple is in. They build something wonderful, and then users "expect" and "demand" perfection at all times. Software is hard, really hard. Let's appreciate the wonderful software that is working wonderfully well in this complex networked world.

With all due respect, I believe you’re wrong in this case.

Apple’s iCloud has had bugs for years that they ignored. Address book / contacts bugs, sync error bugs, etc.

If there is ever software that must be bug-free, it is software that protects children. If Apple claims that you can protect your kids by setting up Screen Time, and then fails to fix a bug that, in my personal experience, has been ongoing for at least 16 months, Apple has shown that it does not take the matter seriously.

I personally escalated this exact issue well over a year ago. This is why I must make iCloud passwords and physical access the tools to keep my kids safe.

There are well known bugs that Apple will fix over a weekend. This bug, it seems, Apple deemed unimportant until the complaints came in. It’s simply unacceptable.

 

[JH101]

With all due respect, I believe you’re wrong in this case.

Apple’s iCloud has had bugs for years that they ignored. Address book / contacts bugs, sync error bugs, etc.

If there is ever software that must be bug-free, is software that protects children. If Apple claims that you can protect your kids by setting up Screen Time, and then fails to fix a bug that, in my personal experience, has been ongoing for at least 16 months, Apple has shown that it does not take the matter seriously.

I personally escalated this exact issue well over a year ago. This is why I must make iCloud passwords and physical access the tools to keep my kids safe.

There are well known bugs that Apple will fix over a weekend. This bug, Apple has deemed unimportant until the complaints came in. It’s simply unacceptable.

completely agree. They have to be careful, as I'm sure somebody may take them to court over this, as it's that serious (i.e. lack of due diligence)

 

[dz5b609]

Oh no, now the parents will actually have to supervise their children themselves, by actually looking after them.

The horror.

 

[orbital~debris]

This story is the kind of thing that MacRumors really should have been on the case of earlier.

There are likely a great many families using Apple devices along with this feature, but you only get a sense of that if you read the forums regularly…

MacRumors obviously covers the minutiae of what this or that leaker claims, but does also provide the trappings of a technology news outlet (covering some other items in Apple’s orbit, as well as promoting accessories and reviewing devices etc.) so could certainly better use that platform for highlighting issues affecting Apple-using families as well.

 

[klasma]

This bug has been going on for almost a year. I expect a fix by the time iOS 17 rolls out.

Non sequitur. It could go on for another year or two or three.

 

[JH101]

Oh no, now the parents will actually have to supervise their children themselves, by actually looking after them.

The horror.

my friend, you literally cannot supervise them 24/7. You can do your best as a parent to see what they are doing, but with todays tech, its near imposible to keep tabs on them all the time. This feature is part of the way we can keep tabs on them, & for it to let us down, is really serious.

 

[nvmls]

El oh el. Nice hyperbole there but we don't expect "perfection at all times". Rather what we don't expect is the numerous bugs & glitches that have plagued Mac OS & iOS ever since Craig & Ive were handed the reigns from Forstall & Serle.

This is that same **** we routinely mocked Microsoft for in the late-90's/early-00's

 

[jlwarlow]

Apple pretty much broke screen time as soon as they added 1 more minute which you can't disable. Before then downtime was useful, stopped my son using his phone past a certain time. Now all he needs to do is 1 more minute on each app he has installed (30 apps = 30 more minutes of messing about).

 

[Rygaard]

ScreenTime is worthless in the current configuration. last week my screen time was up by 2000% ... why because i used the GPS alot that week an was driving alot - I dont really see my GPS usage as screen time. Neither do i see it as screen time when i use iphone to play music via youtube and have to leave the screen on.

it Cant be that hard to figure out a more fair representation of screen time. - also perhaps a logging of "work vs play"

 

[Rygaard]

View attachment 2239543

It is funny, I will almost daily meet windows users who need to tell me how superior windows is or how expensive macs are, or how they cant do this or cant do that. - and how **** mac is in general (even thought they have never touched a mac) - I on the other hand do no feel the need to point out the opposite, and to be honest i think both sides have stuff to improve. ( but jesus if my windows PC got copy paste sharing with my phone my life would be alot more easy)

No one is forcing you to buy a mac.
(when that is said I would like Apple to get it together and fix all the bugs)

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

I don't envy the position that Apple is in. They build something wonderful, and then users "expect" and "demand" perfection at all times. Software is hard, really hard. Let's appreciate the wonderful software that is working wonderfully well in this complex networked world.

This is probably appropriate to any org working on large-scale projects. Thousands of engineers managing millions of lines of code, hundreds of interconnected and communicating systems locally, area, and remote, all while under the often crushing weight of user and stakeholder expectations.

Most of us try really hard to build things right, but more often than not, things don't quite go that way. Certainly in my area, if a bug is identified, it can sometimes be hard to get the time to actually fix it because the resource is hoovered up by the other things being worked on.

 

[LightSwitch]

Any parent who has used screen time will know how unreliable and buggy it is. If this was a 3rd party app I would deleted it a long time ago. I still use it but it’s still really bad. Up your game apple!

 

[amartinez1660]

Alright, I’m expecting this (and crossing fingers actually) to be deeper than just screen time. If user’s data synchronization, iCloud shenanigans, settings and whatnot are a main part of the issues, then fixing this could result in some of that spilling over fixes system wide…

All those bugs are quite the inconvenience… safari tabs that didn’t sync properly before, contacts missing on a random device, Watch music list still unsynced, etc

The worst offender sync wise in my opinion (but probably not quite the same) would be HomePods, no matter what I do regarding them being in the same network and all that, they ALWAYS get out of sync given enough time and can’t even see them anymore until restarting them.

 

[DVD Plaza]

Screen Time does my absolute head in - I have a young daughter that is on her iPad soooooooooooo much that I have put really aggressive settings on it, a mere hour per day, but Screen Time may as well be Party Time it rarely works. Once in a blue moon I see her apps greyed out, otherwise she can go all day and all bloody night and the one hour limit is still going like a bloody Energiser Bunny

 

[Wizec]

I’ve had this issue for years.

Here’s another fun one. Try limiting Apple Music time. All it does is limit how long you can be in the app.

My kid can “listen” all day long, even though I set a 1hr limit.

 

[t0rqx]

It's amazing to watch their mood and attitude change after a few days of no screens. Actual creativity happens.

Screen time is rubbish and is a bane of my life. No way will the kids tell you it has reset and they have unlimited access.

Exactly. And people still cheer for Vision Pro. They have no idea what will hit em.

 

[Jmausmuc]

Screen Time is horrible. It has so many bugs it’s insane.

It’s also crazy that it measure CarPlay useage as screentime. Who ever came up with that idea should really question their life choices.

 

[SirJedi]

I would honestly not be surprised if this generated a class action lawsuit at some point. My two teens each have iPhones and iMacs and from the beginning (2.5 years ago) it has been nothing but frustration. Some apps seem exempt from screentime, other apps that don’t require a network connection keep working after the limit has been set, the kids seem to find a million workarounds online. I personally believe Apple knows about this and is generally OK as they want the kids to continue to want Apple products. I acknowledge it’s a “first world problem” as they say but screentime is the biggest stressor in our household. Given Apple has full root access at the OS and chip level, this is an easy problem to fix IF THEY WANT TO !!