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peakay Author

Level 1

1 points

Ipad Mini: Parental Control Time Restrictions

Hi there,

My daughter is getting a new Ipad Mini and we would like to use the same parental controls as we enjoy on our Macbooks and IMacs with regard to restricting the time of day they can be used and how many total hours.

I DID search already and found the threads dealing with this, but the referred apps seem to only offer a preset game time limit or in the case of "mcgruff", provide an alternate web browser than can be restricted. We want the whole device to be unavailable at certain hours and want the kids to be able to use safari and not some cartoon character browser.

Any suggestions or pointers to Apps? Apple shoudl really be offeirn ghis by now with 7 versions of IOS out, but they seem unwilling to do so.

Thanks.

Posted on Jun 18, 2013 10:12 AM

21 replies

shedworx

Level 1

5 points

Apr 22, 2014 6:15 AM in response to peakay

Have a look at curbi:

http://www.curbi.com

curbi allows you to remotely manage a child's iOs device from your iPhone, iPad or the Web.

You can set bedtime, study time and almost any rule you can think of.

curbi controls all internet traffic going to and from the device, so you can control SnapChat, Facebook and any other connected app.

Give it a try - you might like it 🙂

peakay Author

Level 1

1 points

Apr 22, 2014 8:50 AM in response to shedworx

Thanks Shed. We've since moved on to Android and use an app called Kytetime that works great, but there is still an iphone in our house that is completely unmanaged that I'd like to some oversight on. Plus my daughter would prefer an ipad.

From what I can see, it seems to work via VPN, right? The only user review I see on it onthe app store says the control was easily turned off. If you've used it, please provide a review and let us know also if you are a representative of the company. Thanks!

I keep wanting to believe that Apple will eventually add controls that bring the ios experience to parity with what we enjoy on our OSX laptops, but that does not seem to be the case...

shedworx

Level 1

5 points

Apr 23, 2014 5:13 PM in response to peakay

Hi Peakay. Yes - we are the company behind curbi (Shedworx).

curbi works using an on-demand VPN. Its on for all network access which is how we control content going to the device.

curbi can be bypassed fairly easily, but the parent is notified if that happens, and curbi does rectify any bypass attempt automatically. Like any parenting approach, a certain amount of by-in is required on the part of the child.

Android definitely has more comprehensive parental control and lockdown solutions available than iOS. Having said that, we think curbi is the best option available on iOS right now. Also, no kids we know are asking for Android tablets for Christmas 😉

We certainly looked at the OSX parental control approach (which I use on my OSX devices with my kids). They're logical and easy to use, and made a good start point.

I don't believe Apple will ever put that kind of control system on iOS mainly because phones are different to desktop/laptop computers. Even with curbi, we never stop people from actually using the iPhone/iPad (not that we could if we wanted to) we just control internet access.

Hope that helps!

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