Apple Introduces Parental Controls on iPhones | TechTree.com

Apple Introduces Parental Controls on iPhones

The new update to the iOS would give parents new tools to guard their children from phone addiction and would be applicable to phone calls, messages and FaceTime

 

Apple has announced an update to its iOS operating system which provides parents with additional means to control their children smartphone addition by setting the limits over whom their kids can talk to or text and during what intervals of time. These restrictions would apply to phone calls, messages and FaceTime across all iPhones with the latest OS update.

The new Parental Controls are part of the iOS 13.2 updates that the company released on Wednesday night though they’ve not yet included the same in their newsroom which incidentally has detailed write-ups about how parents could set privacy restrictions, stop unauthorized iTunes purchases, prevent explicit content, restrict Siri web search and Game Center etc.

The new controls would also allow parents to apply different sets of restrictions on calls and messaging during the child’s permitted screen time and their own downtime hours, the latter being the period that they do not want the iPhone to disturb them.

Once users update the software, they would find a new Communications Limits section on the phone’s Screen Time under the Settings. Users can set limits based on contacts which means users can be reached by everyone or only those in the contact lists. The same operations can also be carried out for personal downtime.

Parents can get to choose who can contact their children by setting it up under Screen Time’s Parental Controls. They can also designate specific contacts that the kid can message or call. So, there is no chance that the kid might just end up calling your boss during down time and telling her that you were home when you were supposed to be on a client meeting!!!

An additional feature of the new update is that it also allows parents to manage the child’s iCloud contacts remotely, thus making it simpler for them to share important numbers with the kid in case of any emergency. Of course, the flip side is that it puts the parents in total control of the child’s contact list, which may just become a challenge if they’re entering their teens.

While Apple began the process of controlling Screen Time with the iOS12 released last year, the reason for tightening parental controls were possibly a result of comments from many parents who had leveraged them to restrict iPhone use and addition among their kids and suggesting that these had actually worked well in the past.

Of course, the smarter kids had found ways to switch off parental controls the moment they began to recognize their privacy as teenagers, or sometimes even earlier. The fact is that a quick Google search reveals several websites that give details of how to remove the controls and free up the iPhone or the iPad that most children get to us well before their kindergarten years.

It is not just Apple that has been showing concern about the incidence of growing screen time among children and teenagers. Google had introduced its own set of tools, calling it the “digital well-being” controls for the Android phones while Facebook changed things at the backend to ensure that kids were safe online. In fact, Instagram even made it mandatory to share age while signing up.

Make no mistake! Kids learn to hack very early in life these days. 

Image source: iMore


TAGS: Apple, iPhone iOS13.3, Parental Controls, Communication Limits

 
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