MacRumors:
Earlier today, a report from The New York Times highlighted Apple’s removal of a number of App Store apps that had allowed users to monitor usage of their devices or those used by their children. The report suggests that Apple’s move to pull the apps is related to having rolled out its own Screen Time feature in iOS 12 that competes in some ways with these apps, raising concerns over anticompetitive behavior.
After reading the article, MacRumors reader Zachary Robinson emailed Tim Cook to express concern over the situation, and earlier today he received a thorough response from Phil Schiller outlining that Apple’s removal of these apps is due to their use of Mobile Device Management (MDM) technology to monitor everything that happens on the user’s phone.
While becoming more common, it’s still a fairly unusual move for Apple to respond so quickly, directly, and on a weekend to stories like the one in the New York Times.
Shill
idiot.
Knock off the name calling and personal insults to fellow commenters.
A lot of these time tracking apps require invasive monitoring and tracking of all your apps and activities by third parties. For example, one of the apps listed in the NYT article is relabelled and used in Saudi Arabia to track women.
The problem is the solution for child monitoring and control is an inherently invasive product requirement. Parents will want to be able to view, track and block everything their kids access, which will look the functionally the same as corporate MDM because the requirements are the same, it’s just the end users are different.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the requirement, but it can, like all tools, be used for good or for ill. Keeping control of corporate devices or monitoring your 10 year old is different than doing it to your wife/adult daughter