Apple’s Screen Time updates are too little, too late

Apple’s spending so much of its WWDC keynote on parental controls was surprising for a number of reasons. But the biggest thing is that despite all the airtime, it doesn’t announce anything new beyond a redesigned interface. All the mentioned features are already there or have been upgraded to current options. Why Apple chose to do this is no mystery. You can trace the threads from recent major social media trials against Meta and Google to the protesters outside Cupertino headquarters today: Apple is trying to show the world that it’s responsible when it comes to your kids.

It’s just not really. Screen time is really bad. As the mother of two kids now entering their late teens (18 and 15) who own Apple Watches, iPads, and iPhones, I’ve struggled with Apple’s parental controls for years. In that time, I’ve racked up what feels like nearly 2,000 screen time passwords and gained several new gray hairs.

Screen time isn’t a reliable way to control your child’s device use; The only real way to limit screen time is to remove the screen. It’s something Apple is unlikely to ever back down from, and as your child gets older, it’s something that’s increasingly unacceptable for a number of reasons.

I’m not going to get into people here or get into an argument about how much responsibility one should place against the technology developer versus the parent when it comes to parental control – that’s a whole community debate.

My issue with Screen Time is that the world’s most powerful tech company, specializing in hardware and software, half-assed its “parental controls” over the years and is now trying to put lipstick on a pig.

There are many complaints on user forums about Screen Time not working, being inaccurate, kids finding ways to bypass it, and frustrations with its limitations. In 2024, Jonah Stern The Wall Street Journal A bug was reported that allowed children to bypass content restrictions on Screen Time For many years.

The only good thing Apple has done since I started using Screen Time nearly a decade ago is to add an alert that tells you when “someone” has used the Screen Time passcode — and it Last year.

However, here we are, and some updates are coming with iOS 27 this fall. Ask browsing to request permission to visit a new website, which is great for monitoring kids’ internet usage. As I know very well, when you ask them to download an app for a while, kids bypass restrictions on apps like Discord and TikTok by going to websites instead. You can block individual websites, but this is the real fun game of Wake-A-Mole.

One thing Apple still needs to fix here is the ability for a child to re-download a previously downloaded app to his or a family member’s account. As for the Discord debacle, even after my daughter deleted the app from her device, she could re-download it without asking because I downloaded it.

Communication limits, which allow you to manage your child’s interactions and who they can call and message and when, are not new. And they are spiteful and spiteful. I turned it off when neither of us could add contacts to her phone. This was a problem when she had to add her teacher’s number when she was on a school trip, but it turned into a bigger problem when screen time prevented her from calling me. Some of the issues I’ve encountered seem to stem from the time it takes to sync across devices, especially when you’re not together. Hopefully the redesigned Screen Time interface includes some behind-the-scenes improvements.

It’s a feature Apple has spent a lot of time on in Keynote, even though time payments are already a feature. You can set time limits on the app for a while. What’s new is that you now get some “expert” guidance on how much time your child should devote to an app or category. If you set the Netflix slider to four hours, the parents will feel guilty when you finish your complaint.

What I would like to see are more granular payment types. For example, entertainment includes YouTube, Spotify and Netflix. I’m happy my kid can have Spotify for hours, but not YouTube. You can set time limits for individual apps, but that’s a lot.

Speaking of “a lot,” managing screen time for your kids can feel like a full-time job. I’m particularly interested in the redesigned Screen Time interface, which will be more usable than the current method of digging through multiple screens in settings. I’ve lost count of the number of parents who have asked me to help them turn on parental controls on their child’s iPad or iPhone. When searching for “Parental Controls” in settings, nothing shows up.

I’m disappointed that Apple didn’t make Screen Time a separate app; I think this would improve ease of use, but I mostly prefer it so I can lock it with Face ID. Children are smart. My daughter keeps looking at my phone without me looking at it and doesn’t choose to change block at off limit for every app. It’s tricky because you have to dive pretty deep to find a lot of menus, which means I often don’t notice the change. The pitfalls of raising a tech-savvy teen.

If Apple wants to take credit for protecting our kids from the dangers of screen time, parents need to start with controls they can trust.