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I am Sampson

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2007
398
126
Plymouth, UK
In a moment of madness I bought the new Apple TV 4K 2022 despite having a perfectly good fire stick 4K.

I’m loving the speed it has, but whilst I haven’t managed to get proper user accounts working yet due to silly have to be an Apple ID rules.. I have a major problem with in-app pins.

It seems that the user interface for the pin used for user accounts in Netflix, prime, Disney etc. means that anyone looking at the screen can see what the pin is!!! Fire TV makes it so you can enter it to allow your child to watch something and they won’t have a clue what the pin in, but on Apple TV they will clearly see.

Please tell me there is some setting I’ve not found to change this? As a parent of 5 varied aged children who need different content ratings it’s probably a deal breaker and a very odd oversight in my mind.
 

Casey Royals

macrumors regular
Sep 25, 2016
124
42
Melbourne, Australia
You can use an iphone/iPad to enter the details, the screen on the TV will display dots as you enter. there’s a remote control accessible via an icon in the Control Centre of those devices.
 

-Gonzo-

macrumors 65832
Nov 14, 2015
1,502
841
You can use an iphone/iPad to enter the details, the screen on the TV will display dots as you enter. there’s a remote control accessible via an icon in the Control Centre of those devices.
I think that only works for passwords.
Disney+ for example you’re still reliant on highlighting the numbers on screen using remote navigation to enter the 4 digit pin.
Edit:
Just done some further testing on this just to make sure and Disney+ is just as I said, however SkyGo is just as Casey has said which lets you input the numbers and they don’t show on screen.
So it seems this is a function that’s entirely up to the individual app developers to take advantage of.
 
Last edited:

I am Sampson

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2007
398
126
Plymouth, UK
Thank you for your replies, I appreciate the time and effort. Yes, I have done that for passwords (very useful for setup) but doesn’t seem to work for pins.

I now have 2 further issues related to parental controls….
1) it keeps apps open and in their last used account for a LONG time. So if I use Netflix on an adult account one night, the next day when a child goes on it loads right into the adults Netflix without asking for a pin at all!
2) I managed to get proper user accounts set up to test hoping that would solve it as then we’d only access adult stuff under the adult Apple ID, however, this also does not work as it neither prompts you which account when turning on, no can you pin lock a user account!!!!

I’m baffled by such incredibly huge oversights and how they were never mentioned in any of the fire tv / Apple TV comparisons I read.
Genuinely interested in what others who have children do, but as it stands I’ll be returning this otherwise delightful product and going back to the slower uglier but safe-for-kids fire stick. Got till Christmas to play in my return window though.
 
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