Ina Fried, Axios:
A new page on Apple’s website details its efforts to make Macs and iPhones family friendly, including parental controls and other safety features. The move comes as Apple and other tech giants are under fire over whether their products are addictive, especially for children.
From this letter to Apple from a collective of Apple investors:
We have reviewed the evidence and we believe there is a clear need for Apple to offer parents more choices and tools to help them ensure that young consumers are using your products in an optimal manner. By doing so, we believe Apple would once again be playing a pioneering role, this time by setting an example about the obligations of technology companies to their youngest customers.
Apple’s new page is here. Definitely a step in the right direction, a single stop for learning about tools and resources for keeping your family safe.
As I regularly use these tools, it is evident that few people of influence that are at Apple actually use these tools themselves. The “Ask to Buy” function is terrible… requiring my 7 year old to login TWICE before he gets the “Ask to Buy” and then again when I approve it. And it requires all of those logins every… single… time. Meaning if he wants to download and app, he clicks “get” and enters his password twice so he can ask… then he clicks “get” on another app and has to do the same thing again.
I receive the requests rapid fire, and then I have to login for each one of them (FaceID/TouchID doesn’t work for parental approvals).
Stupid.
I use TouchID for my parental approvals and the “3 login” process doesn’t sound familiar. I find all the tools clunky at best, but much better than you have experienced.