Screen Time and Safari

Without Safari being able to be blocked it makes Downtime ineffective. I want to fully limit my sons screen time in the overnight hours and having Safari available subverts this.

Apple: Please release an update soon that allows blocking Safari in Downtime.

Please can someone help me, I have 4 child devices, I have activated screen time, listed the allowed apps that are allowable during downtime but I don’t see safari as an allowed app and yet on all devices it tells me that I have reached my time limit and that my kids can ask for more time.

how has this happened, they need safari for homework so it is now causing a problem. Can someone please advise what I have done.

Thank you

Safari is always turned off with downtime, however the app doesn’t grey out. I think the system must need to access it at all times, But (and i can only speak from my experience) when my child opens safari and tries to load a website after 8pm (which is when i have it set to kick in) it comes up saying that downtime is active and you may ask permission from a parent to allow more time on the particular website. So in effect safari is unusable with downtime on, which is what we want right?

As to JamesMcook all i can say is once downtime has kicked in you either just click allow more time for whatever website they want to do their homework on or tell your kids to do their homework before downtime kicks in. It’s one or the other I’m afraid.

The only alternative is to switch off downtime altogether and set time limits on games and entertainment etc..Therefore blocking the games etc after a certain amount of time but safari and websites should still be available 24/7

And to all the parents reading this, Downtime and screen time etc is very confusing when trying to set it up properly on a childs iPad or iPhone.

I rang apple support (well i submitted a help ticket online and they rang me back instantly) and they guided me through the whole process. They actually remotely connected to my iPhone and my daughters iPad and talked me step by step of how to set it up. The call center is in Ireland i think. They were extremely friendly & helpful.

you have paid a lot of money for your childs device so don’t hesitate to ring them and ask them how to set it up.

Safari is always allowed even though the time restrictions (shut down phone at 8 pm etc) or the time limit (shut down after 1 hour)

clicking on safari doesn’t trigger the screeen time limits. Not only that, my kid learned that she can use safari to play YouTube videos (rather than the app) and the limit doesn’t kick in until after she finishes the video and tries to watch another. Then she just closes safari, clicks a new video and watches that one. (Lucky i have an honest kid who showed me lol)

Your fix worked - sort of, lol. It does now trigger screen time unless her last website was YouTube. Then it goes to the video but then 2 seconds in (or so) it blocks the video with the screen time message (saying she can request more time) but the audio still works!! But I guess we are halfway there lol

This is totally ridiculous - I want to put Safari in down time, simple as that, I don’t want a time limit. Apple this is a bug / flaw. Why on earth create down time (at last) but leave THE most problematic app out of it??! Is it some kind of developers joke?

The last time I tried Chrome, the parental controls for browser content restrictions will not apply to the Chrome browser. They only work for Safari. You can set Chrome content restrictions within Chrome itself, but you can't lock them.

My problem was that how it was supposed to work wasn't working. I get that Safari itself isn't managed by Screen Time, but videos opened into full-screen mode in Safari, if left open, continued indefinitely during downtime and after the allotted time for the day. Maybe it has been fixed since I first voiced this complaint, but it was so frustrating that I turned off Safari on my boys' devices and I haven't looked back. Not an ideal solution, but it felt so broken at the beginning that I didn't want to spend any more time trying to deal with it.

Jimjimms64, Just because it's working that way for you doesn't mean everyone else is having the same experience. I was able to get Screen Time for Safari working, but only after I deleted all my settings a couple times. I easily spent a couple hours troubleshooting the problem. Not everyone has that much spare time and a simple workaround may be the best solution for them.

Having said that, people should read thru the previous posts to see what worked for other people.

As much of a ‘gateway’ safari is, it is an application on my child’s phone that doesn’t respond to downtime. That makes zero sense. This is a bug and should be addressed.

Agreed this is stupid. If downtime is meant to help limit phone usage then having access to the entire internet on Safari seems like a incredibly glaring oversight

Yep, that’s a great feature but it doesn’t work! It seems Snapchat and Instagram are a law unto themselves and nothing can restrict them!!

You have to click “not allowed” on access to web content on setting’s downtime.