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Apple Promises to Fix Long-Ignored Parental Control Bug After Media Spotlight
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Screen time is the single highly critical feature that Apple is ignoring so badly. There’s a long list of issues we’ve been having for years. Some are workarounds, others are so huge that it makes it almost useless.
Still use it, but I wish Apple put way more urgency in making sure it’s safe.
Still use it, but I wish Apple put way more urgency in making sure it’s safe.
Sure. But Apple is a US company and therefore loves to censure “adult” content in the App Store. The idea someone could see a naked body part… Therefore I find this bug inexcusable.
I agree with your sentiment.
However...
as a devil's advocate, I will add that a company of Apple's size and the gazillion lines of code they are developing and maintaining in parallel simply has to draw the line somewhere when it comes to bugs.
(We all probably disagree where that line should be drawn).
Is a bug that impacts one user worth devoting resources to? Probably not.
What about ten users? A hundred? A thousand?
Every person and company has to decide for themselves of what is acceptable.
While a "bug count" of zero would be amazing, in this universe it's science fiction.
Interesting point. Too strict parental controls and kids are not going to love their iPhones so much anymore, which is not good for business with your most important demographic.
Brand loyalty is largely established by the time we're 30, which is why most marketers target younger audiences - better long term ROI for your marketing dollars.
This is especially true since children often get older hand-me-down devices that might not support the latest OS.Just make sure you fix the problem for iOS 15, 16, 17. Not all of us can upgrade, don’t just fix it and iOS 18.
It is when everyone knows you're lying. They're a 3 trillion dollar company, they can't claim they don't have the resources to deal with this. They also can't claim they care about security at all with issues like this taking so long to even be acknowledged.
You could argue that Apple does this to themselves with their aggressive annual OS release schedule. It's gotten to the point where they routinely can't even deliver all of the new headline features on day 1 of the new OS's release, to say nothing about spending time squashing bugs.
I agree that zero bugs is unrealistic, but that doesn't mean Apple should let the ones that are out there fester. All of Apple's platforms would benefit from a Snow Leopard-style optimization release, and hopefully that will happen when Intel support is dropped from macOS.
Add my voice to those that experience Screen Time as a steaming pile of garbage. Kids are crafty, but this control isn’t even trying. It truly is pathetic.
I don’t trust it and have even tried router level controls, yet my 12 year old finds a way!
I don’t trust it and have even tried router level controls, yet my 12 year old finds a way!
I can see why Apple didn't prioritize it.
Parental controls are really about protecting the younger innocents from accidentally being exposed to inappropriate content. Any kid that's determined enough to use this method to work around parental restrictions knows what they are doing and has seen it all anyways.
Parental controls are really about protecting the younger innocents from accidentally being exposed to inappropriate content. Any kid that's determined enough to use this method to work around parental restrictions knows what they are doing and has seen it all anyways.
It doesn't mean higher revenue. Once you buy the device, what difference does it make if you use it 3 hours per day or 6?
Presumably the “difference” is that the more you use it the more likely you are to do things like buy subscriptions. Apple doesn’t see the device as the end of your purchase. Apple sees iPhone as the BEGINNING of your purchase.
My 5 yr old daughter was able to work around screen time for youtube by going to messages, clicking the messages app for youtube and sending herself the youtube videos she's watched in her history and just watch them again. I was able to submit a feedback of this workaround and they repaired it relatively quickly in the next version. But its' absurd how Apple has billions and cant work smarter than a 5 yr old.
The biggest headache for me is that formerly (2 years ago?) the parents using screen time for their children could lock the ability to make changes to location sharing. Now that feature has been moved and kids can simply choose to not share their location. This needs to be put back into the screen time feature set.
I could speak about serious bugs and ridiculous inconsistencies in iOS for an hour straight. The feedback website is a joke. Bugs I reported years ago are still in the operating system and mess with millions on a daily basis. I’m extremely disappointed in Apple software.
Again, the subscriptions don't depend on you using the device more.
Once you see the value in Apple Music, and are paying £9.99 per month, it's in Apple's interest for you to stream as little as possible(!)
Technically, you could remotely lock down a device by marking it as lost (which isn't very elegant). The latter is called spying and not exactly something that would sell phones. All kids want an iPhone today - if mummy and daddy can spy on them with it, guess what they won't want anymore?
The Apple classroom environment (also a mess of bugs without updates for years) does let you view screens, lock apps, etc. so they do have the tech there to do what you are suggesting but it is never happening.
To achieve what you want you ensure you know the passcode and add your face to FaceID and then let your kids hate you for being a snoop.
Apple ditched their ad platform almost a decade ago so the mistake is yours.
It's also why the whole "beacons" feature vanished and has never been mentioned again as it was tied to that platform.