Anyone else seeing issues with Screentime Limits ?
We only set this up at the weekend but today (for the 2nd day running) I see that my daughter has managed an online time of well over her allowed limit
I have put a call in to Apple and they are investigating
iPhone 6s, iOS 12, null
Hi, I have exactly the same problems. First I made a limit for groups of apps, and then some gaming apps (zombs royale) were not included. Then I made app specific limits and find out that my son, despite having a 20 minute limit on the bombs royale app, payed 1 hour 28 minutes.
This is pretty amazing that Apple is not able to construct a lock on its own phone.
For those who consider the non-Apple apps Kidslox, Screen Time or OurPact: Screen Time works very well on Android, but not well on iPhone. OurPact works decently on iPhones but not well on Android. Kidslox is mediocre in general
Kids have figured out they can change the clock on their phones to get around screen time limits.
I believe the problem is because a bunch of 20 somethings are developing software for parents to manage restrictions and none of them have kids. That aside, I believe the app limits are PER APP CATEGORY. I have been struggling with this same issue. While it makes perfect sense to limit ALL APPS in ALL CATEGORIES by the time you set...I think they want us to say...you have 15 minutes of games, 20 minutes of social media, 13 minutes of reading, etc....which does ZERO good. There is NO ONE talking about this. I hope they fix this because is this is the way it is meant to be used, it is useless to me as a parent.
Have you looked at either Kidslox or Screentime (the app) ? We have had some success with both in the past but our 12 year old had a major issue with the fact that there was an app that was in her face that was spying on her and hated being called a "Kid" :-)
For both those reasons I had hoped that this iOS feature would work better than it seems to but at the moment I think we are both SOL
If you are willing to spend money KIDSLOX will do the job for you
Lawrence - take a look at Kidslox.....I think you will find it does not have this issue
I still have a case open with Apple but there is not much action - am I able to share the case so that others can pile on and apply some pressure somehow ?
I share your frustration
I can tell you that after a support call the other day I believe they have accepted a bug and are working it....the case is still open and I am tracking it
I've played with a few and none of them really worked well. In my experience the good that they bring is almost the same as the bad they bring.
They need to do what Microsoft has done. I can set an aggregate time limit that is attached to the user account. So xbox, surface, windows pcs, etc. all share the same time. My understanding is that the MacOS security/parental controls doesn't mesh well (or at all) with screen time.
Haha...my son tries the same thing. The updates happen while the xbox is off (the default setting). So yea...the updates aren't taking all his time 😉
But Microsoft has a much better parental control system than apple right now. It isn't perfect but it works as you would expect across devices and it's AGGREGATE. Not app category. I have no idea how that got past any focus group or testing group. I didnt even think of it because it is so far outside of what makes sense.
Yes I am not a MSFT fan at all but we have that enabled for my son's XBOX and I can see how it can extend and work well across other devices although the only one he has so far is the console. He complains that the time he is allocated gets sucked up by Fortnight doing its updates and says he never really gets the time he is allocated but it does seem to work better than this mess from AAPL
Interesting - do you know where it says that the updates happen during offline time or how you know that ? Is there an XBOX setting ?
I keep asking him to show me one of the 30 minute updates he keeps telling us are taking his Screentime but needless to say they are still stuff of the Unicorn !
Did you ever find out what is going on? Now I can’t see how long my daughter has been in her phone and tic tok will not restrict at all. It’s so frustrating that all other apps will restrict except the ones I want them to have limits on. :/
Mine was working great but now all of a sudden her Snapchat will not block at all. It’s not listed in apps to use all the time and I did latest update but it still won’t turn Snapchat off...
I have now lost all visibility of my daughter's phone usage through Apple ScreenTime. Kidslox tells me time used up to her daily limit but Apple has no idea what she is doing !
By the way has anyone else noticed that the times reported and the details do not seem to align at all ? For example if I look at a report from my daughter's phone right now it reports she was online for 1h30mins + but when I look down the list of "MOST USED" apps the list shows around 50 mins of usage down to the smallest reported timesloh which seems to be about 5s leaving around 40 mins of apparent usage that Apple record at the macro level unaccounted for at the App level and leading to an argument with the daughter when we show her that Apple says she has been online for more time than she was supposed to and the figures do not add up !
Screentime limit not working
