Apple Planning New, 'Robust' Parental Controls To Help Protect Children, Teens (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An open letter to Apple from some investors sparked the tech giant to respond by promising new software tools for parents to restrict and monitor their kids' smartphone use. In a report by The Wall Street Journal, Apple states it has plans to create new software features that will make its current parental controls on iPhone and other devices "even more robust." "We think deeply about how our products are used and the impact they have on users and the people around them," Apple said in its statement to The Wall Street Journal. "We take this responsibility very seriously and we are committed to meeting and exceeding our customers' expectations, especially when it comes to protecting kids."

Apple didn't provide details on its planned, improved parental control features, but it did point back to the controls its software has had in place since 2008. The Settings app on every iPhone has a parental control section that allows adults to restrict website access, control in-app purchases, and install or delete apps, among other things. But those existing settings haven't been enough to quell the worries of the investors who wrote an open letter to Apple last week, expressing concern about the effect smartphones can have on kids who are glued to those devices.

Comments

Cyborgs

[hackwrench]

Looking at this the wrong way. Those children are proto-cyborgs and those smartphones are prosthesis.

Am I missing something?

[TigerPlish]

I'm not a parent, and when I was growing up things such as iphones didn't exist, so I have to ask..

Why seek a technical solution to the problem? Why not simply take the device away from the child after x time elapses?

Re: Am I missing something?

[chill]

Because there is some functionality that I would really like my child to have always available.

Some things I want to limit more than others. Summer I want to encourage. Tools to help me do that as a parent are valuable.

Re:Am I missing something?

[sl3xd]

Why not simply take the device away from the child after x time elapses?

The old "take the toy away, give them a textbook to do homework" model doesn't work with computers.

Unlike a toy, computers have many, many abilities. By taking away the device, you may take away the unapproved toy, but also approved things you want your child to be doing -- reading books, news, maybe even textbooks, educational programming, or using tools to create art and music, and so on.

So, parental controls can be used to to limit functionality for reading, instead of gaming, which seems perfectly valid to me.

And I can walk over and look at what my child is doing on the device, but it only takes a fraction of a second to close the offending app and appear compliant. They can hide the evidence while I'm walking over.

Honestly... "My toddler's too quiet" is a meme for a reason: even the youngest toddlers know when they're sneaking behind their parent's back. Even the best parents have an extremely limited capacity to pay attention, and aren't capable of paying attention all the time. That little child-safety latch over the cupboard with drain cleaner may be a "technological gimmick", but I have yet to meet anybody who considers it bad parenting.

So parental controls can also be part of a "defense in depth" kind of thing -- yes, you monitor what your kids are doing. Eventually, you're going to be human and slip up, and that's where ever-watchful automation can help.

Really?

[ArtemaOne]

My daughter's 5S just doesn't have a credit card attached and the result is a pretty awesome lockdown. I don't see what they could improve.

Seems unlikely...

[StevenMaurer]

Given the disparity of tech-savvy between generations, it seems more likely that this technology will result in the kids locking out the parents, rather than the reverse.

How about nude content?

[jeti]

It would be nice if, with the improved controls, they would allow to publish nude content instead of forcing US prudery on the rest of the world.

Re:If only there were some way

[gfxguy]

No, it hasn't. Some shareholders - you know, part owners of the company - made a request and Apple acquiesced. Nobody suggested it replaces parenting, but it's just another tool in the modern age to help parents. Make fun all you want, but many modern parents want their kids to be able to stay in contact and ALSO want to be able to limit time on social media, games, and other apps. My kids are past the age where I would use this, but I had a good set of rules about phone usage and hours they could use it, and I can still see how it could have been another useful, OPTIONAL, tool being made available to HELP parents (not replace them), and you certainly aren't required to use it - so I just don't get the backlash.

Saying "no" is hard to do

[dunnomattic]

I am in my late 30's with 3 kids between 9 and 14. I honestly can't tell if I'm doing the right thing anymore on this front, but I have outright refused to let my kids have smartphones. I'm not looking to this crowd for affirmation or vindication, but I hope to share my experience for those who find themselves in similar circumstance. Maybe you can give me some perspective.

I know the nonsense I got up to when I was a teen...and I was a "good" kid who barely had a healthy dose of trouble. The mistakes that accompanied learning were unavoidable...but the repercussions were likely temporary and surviveable. And you had to kinda seek out the truly permanent or mortally dangerous risks.

I'm not a prude. I stopped forcing my kids to wear helmets once they had ridden their bikes for a year. The only hovering I do around my kids is making sure the boys don't bloody each other.

The one thing I am adamant about is them not having the internet in their pockets. The thought of them plowing through 4chan or sending/receiving nude texts...or unwittimgly talking to paedophiles...nightmares.

Kids are supposed to disobey and get into trouble. But for Pete'ssake make them work for it! Don't hand them all the gory details on an iPlatter in never-ending full motion HD! There's no effort to type in a search term or click a link compared to procuring and hiding a skin mag. Even in the early internet days on a desktop, you still had a fair risk of getting caught since you were in the living room in plain view!

The whole sexting thing is pretty much a given...if the first MMS ever wasn't someone's ass, then the 2nd or 3rd probably was. It was inevitable from there. And then to blindly whitelist all senders by default...terribly risky to give to a child.

And don't get me started on addiction. I don't do Facebook, and my wife gave it up 8 years ago. She doesn't want a smartphone after breaking 3 of them in a year back in 2014. I have 1, but pretty much use it for email and news feeds only.

I love my kids, and they tell me I'm the best Dad ever. They still ask every few months about iPhones, even though I've largely explained my reasoning to them. They're pretty much the only ones in their public schools without the latest iPhone. I bought all 3 of them simple durable flip phones and disabled all MMS.

For context, I've been a programmer since '97 and started tooling around on BBS's in the early 90s. It gets harder and harder every time they ask to say "no", but I think they are truly better individuals without smartphones...at least not this young. And honestly, even if the parental controls are improved to a point where I could limit everything I wanted to limit, I'd spend so much time administering the controls, I'd burn out and get lazy.