Have kids with iPhones and iPads? As a parent, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with Apple’s Screen Time feature. These parental controls can be found in the Settings app under the Screen Time section on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Screen Time parent controls are very configurable and you can set individual rules for each child. However, I’ve recently bumped up against two Screen Time limitations that should be on Apple’s radar.
Approving new contacts is clunky
First is how managing contacts works for a child’s account with Screen Time enabled. My kids are only allowed to receive messages from saved contacts that I approve.
If an unknown number sends a text, the Messages app says “Preview Hidden” until the contact is saved. Editing contacts requires my Screen Time passcode that is different from their device passcode.
Ideally, I’d like to view the message and be able to respond using my Screen Time passcode without first saving the contact.
Instead, I’m saving the contact as “?”, reading the message, then editing or deleting the contact. If it’s spam, I delete or block the contact. If the message identifies the person, I add their information.
Sometimes I leave the contact as “?” until the person is identified. They’re able to message as long as they’re a contact, even if the contact name is something I’ve used to flag as unknown. I routinely go back and edit the contact information once I’ve verified which friend from school it was.
It works, but it’s clunky.
It helps that my kids have user accounts on my Mac. I can manage everything without actually having their iPhone or iPad in my hands. This kind of remote access isn’t available without a Mac since iPhone and iPad lack multiple user accounts or a comparable feature.
Deleting messages cannot be disabled
Second is the inability to require my Screen Time passcode when deleting messages. This isn’t an issue with my youngest child yet, but it’s already surfaced for my oldest child.
As it stands, no Screen Time passcode is required to delete messages. There is also no option to disable deleting messages.
Apple now includes a Recently Deleted section in Messages that holds deleted messages for a month before they’re actually erased. This is useful for now until my kid discovers that you can just as easily erase messages here too.
Top comment by David Warner
Trying to use Apple's Screen Time as a parent is an exercise in futility.
It still; takes ages to sync across devices, fails to save changes to settings, randomly goes back to settings from months ago, fails to record usage accurately, fails to block some apps for older age groups, doesn't bother recording time in certain apps at all, randomly turns limits off, turns them on during the opposite hours you set, and on, and on, and on.
It even forgets the admin password making you think you must be going insane, and then remembers them again on a restart.
And don't even get me started on what it's like when you want to manage screen time across multiple Apple devices – that's a real comedy of errors.
But none of these things are new – they've all been there for years.
I'd settle for fixes over any new features.
Apple's inability and / or desire to fix Screen Time speaks volumes about what they think about the impact of too much screen time on children in their key developmental years.
Or is it their bottom-line they worry most about?
Either way it's pretty shameful, and I love Apple.
Recently Deleted is meant to be a temporary holding area that lets you restore messages that were accidentally deleted. For parents, however, it should be a place that also requires a Screen Time passcode before fully deleting.
As a Seasoned Technologist™️ who benefited from growing up with computers and the internet, I like to encourage my kids to explore technology in healthy doses.
I didn’t grow up around smartphones and social networks, however, so parental controls are especially important to me for safeguarding my kids as much as possible now. Establishing rules and boundaries comes first, but our devices should also empower us as parents as much as possible.
Hopefully changes like these can be a part of the future roadmap for Screen Time.
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