Title: Screen Time is Flawed and Needs a Fundamental Redesign
Screen Time on iOS and iPadOS is a great concept in theory, but in practice, it fails in several critical areas that make it unreliable for anyone who truly depends on it — especially for parental controls and self-management of device use.
Here are the main issues:
Parents are relying on Screen Time to safeguard their children’s wellbeing and learning balance. Individuals are relying on it to improve their productivity and mental health. But when a feature like this is unreliable, it creates a false sense of security while failing its core purpose.
What Apple should do:
I’m posting this publicly so other users can share their experiences and help make this a priority for Apple. Please fix Screen Time so it can live up to its promise.
Screen Time on iOS and iPadOS is a great concept in theory, but in practice, it fails in several critical areas that make it unreliable for anyone who truly depends on it — especially for parental controls and self-management of device use.
Here are the main issues:
- Easily Bypassed Restrictions
- Children (and even casual users) can find multiple loopholes to bypass app limits and downtime, often with methods that take seconds.
- These loopholes have been reported for years yet remain unaddressed.
- Inconsistent Enforcement
- App limits sometimes fail to trigger until an app is closed and reopened, making them ineffective.
- Notifications, widgets, and web content can often still be accessed even when the category is supposedly restricted.
- Poor Reporting Accuracy
- Screen Time logs usage inconsistently, sometimes under-reporting or over-reporting by large margins.
- This makes it unreliable for tracking patterns over time.
- No Granular Control for Parents
- Restrictions cannot be set per day of the week with fine control (e.g., different limits for school days vs. weekends) without cumbersome manual changes.
- Lack of control over specific in-app functions, only whole apps.
Parents are relying on Screen Time to safeguard their children’s wellbeing and learning balance. Individuals are relying on it to improve their productivity and mental health. But when a feature like this is unreliable, it creates a false sense of security while failing its core purpose.
What Apple should do:
- Close all known bypass methods immediately.
- Ensure Screen Time restrictions apply instantly and consistently.
- Provide more granular scheduling and control options.
- Improve data accuracy and transparency in reporting.
I’m posting this publicly so other users can share their experiences and help make this a priority for Apple. Please fix Screen Time so it can live up to its promise.
