Apple Screen Time app limits not working

I filed a complaint with Apple today. I know no one is going to read it or care, but I felt I needed to do something more. My rep was super helpful and was able to link phone calls and emails dating back to October regarding this issue. I just feel Apple should be notifying consumers at this point. It’s egregious not to. Praying for a fix soon.

I'm at the point of starting to look for other options, third party apps. Recommendations are very much appreciated.

My kids even WANT screentime to work again. My oldest hates her habits to grab the phone at any free moment and she wants almost all apps closed during most of the day. My youngest hates the discussions we keep having. No use discussing with a machine, so she prefers less time with a clear automatic shutdown over more time with lots of fights with her parents.

Same here. Screen time is completely glitchy and useless. Sometimes I can’t even turn downtime in and off. I was just looking at the stats and everything started glitching and flashing. Nothing works, I have app limits on games and that is absolutely not working. This has been more than a few months.

Our daughter can somehow choose to ignore limits, even though it is set up to not allow her to do this. We like to limit TikTok to 1 minute per day (because we can't choose 0 minutes - she always finds a way to re-install the CRapp). Screen Time has turned in to absolute garbage.

With all of the problems I've had with sharing photo albums in the past, and other new problems with Homekit devices not responding at random, I'm starting to think I should have chosen Android and/or Alexa. It doesn't feel like the quality is there anymore.

The only reason I got an iphone for my child (way more expensive than all other options) was to stay assured I have some “reliable” tool to manage my child’s time on mobile. Now I am furious her old samsung (which she took from a family member who was updating) worked better with family link.

I'd love to try this technique, but screen time on my phone for child's phone won't turn off! I can't delete any app limits either. I don't have child's phone with me. The entire feature is a total failure now. I've used Apple Screen time for my child for years. The current version is a complete joke. I reset the app limits and not long after, a weird bunch of app limits show up--like ghosts of previous app limits. Even the ability to allow one more minute is ridiculous and always has been. If a kid has 30 apps, even if the time limit worked, the get 30 more sneaking minutes of screen time. Anyone who works on this feature at Apple needs to be a parent with a screen obsessed tween. By the time my child is ready for a new phone, he'll be too old for me to set screen time on an Android. I am so incredibly angry at Apple about this I could scream.

This May well work, but for how long? Everytime a new ios update is pushed out, there seems to be a problem with screentime when either my phone updates to the latest iOS or my kids phones don’t, or vice versa and then screentime breaks again and i find my kids have been staying up late on their phones again. This is so frustrating and it really upsets me that Apple value their customers so little that they allow this to continue to be their worst/most unreliable app year after year. Screentime used to work much better when it was an independent ios app, so when Apple purchased it and baked it right in to iOS my expectations were that it would work even more ‘seamlessly’. Absolutely useless, thanks Apple!

This issue has been re-occurring again. Is it a system glitch?? I've contact AppleCare 4+ times to set app limits using parental controls for my sons phone. They keep getting over ridden even though we have updated software, reset phones and reset limits. Very frustrating. If it keeps malfunctioning, is there another product I can use?

I'm glad that works. Perhaps you have a five year old. The child is in charge of doing "one more minute" so that won't work. Granting a request is how the screen time works, so if that messes things up, it's apple's problem. Basically, this response is saying that Apple Screen time doesn't work. Apple Fix This.

I'm glad that works. Perhaps you have a five year old. The child is in charge of doing "one more minute" so that won't work. Granting a request is how the screen time works, so if that messes things up, it's apple's problem. Basically, this response is saying that Apple Screen time doesn't work. Apple Fix This. This was in response to a post but the post isn't showing up. No idea why.

In mine as well. If the set screen times would just stay and work, it would help. It doesn't seem so much to ask. It's also stupid that if you allow an app all the time, you need to delete it from the app time allowed. The whole thing is so poorly designed. Apple should be ashamed.

Update seems to have fixed it for me. I mean, time will tell, but so far I’ve done a ton of things that, during the past few months, would have resulted in limits and permissions going all crazy.

Did the update work for anyone whose been posting here?

While i appreciate your simplistic approach, it’s not all that practical for the long term as they use the alarms on their phones to wake them up and the torch if they wake up through the night and on occasion play noise sounds or quiet music to help get them to sleep, so taking their phones away from them every night works in the short term but not for more than a week really. It’s a bit like if i told you the message function on my phone wasn’t delivering messages and you told me to jump on my bike and deliver the message in person. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the phone in the first place. I think also the expectation is high that having Screentime baked right in to iOS is that it will work rather well, i mean it’s not like they’re having to communicate with third parties, all the features are with in iOS so you’d think Apple could work this out.

For the freaking love of all things good, I could just scream. I’ve been updating devices today bc I hadn’t seen any naysayers yet. How on earth is this not public knowledge at this point? It’s like they have given up and don’t care. IT HAS BEEN 6 MONTHS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Clearly it’s not an important fix for them. I hate it. We’ve used Screen Time for Parental Controls for years with success. Such a shame.

Thanks for updating us though. At least I won’t keep my hopes up. Wasn’t yelling at you obviously. But super frustrating. Good luck!

Can I just ask - how do you do the 'sign out of iCloud' step? Im scared stiff of resetting stuff and then losing everything! Its my phone that controls the family sharing piece so I would be resetting my phone and my daughters. Might be a basic question but thanks in advance!