iPad with kids / parental controls / reading at night

In the Settings app there is a section on Restrictions. It only prohibits use of certain apps and age-related content. There is no option for setting a timer. See pages 122 and 123 of the iPad Users Guide for details. That guide is a bookmark in Safari and can be downloaded as a free iBook.

you can definately restrict things like safari, iTunes and youtube. That will restrict them a little bit.

Jason

You can make suggestions to Apple here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

This is a huge problem for a device (iPad, iPod touch, iPhone) that so many parents have just handed to their children assuming it is a safe device that has limits or controls.

Even from within iBooks, just do a search for the the worst thing you wouldn't want your child to see or read and you will likely find a number of free books that can be downloaded instantly.

Also no form of safe browsing is currently possible... We use mobicip on all our devices, which blocks whatever you want and works great. Then we go into settings and block safari and youtube and also block explicit songs, videos, tv shows. We also limit app downloads to age rated 10+.

But here's the deal: These devices will not be safe for kids as long as Apple allows GOOGLE a 4+ age rating on their mobile app. There is absolutely no way for parents to block unrestricted search and browsing from within the GOOGLE mobile app. You can click safe search, but there is no way to lock that preference from the settings->restrictions screen.

GOOGLE mobile app needs to be rated 17+ until this is resolved.

The only way to keep iPad safe for children is to remove iBooks, Safari, Google, YouTube and not allow app purchases in Parental Controls. Then you don't have much of a device. The iPad is not for children.

Instead of using all these babysitting gimmicks with electronic devices, parents should be there monitoring what their kids is doing on the net. After all, they are the parents and it is their responsibility not Google's, Apple's, Youtube's, etc.

Yeah, monitoring is a great idea in theory. But, when my daughter is watching a YouTube video right in front of me, and all is fine with Mario and the Princess being nice and playing. Then, Luigi suddenly jumps on the screen and stabs her violently, there isn't much anyone can do about that!

Avoid the problem and say it's all the parent's responsibility. Any parent that is spending the amount of time necessary to preview every video available on the internet is doing a major disservice to their children by not spending that time with them.

Would you give children a gun without first taking steps to ensure that they'll use it properly?

Oh, just get lost with your 'gun' remark.... It's stupid and a bad analogy

The facts just are that the Ipad and Youtube are great for kids, and you just want to make it safe for them / restrict content a bit.

Mobicip does this, but I find the big restriction is that you have to use the Mobicip browser and can no longer use the Youtube and Safari native apps.

Why can we not have filtering that also works on these apps?