Apple's reputation for reliability, ease of use, and seamless ecosystem integration falls short when it comes to Screen Time, a critical tool for parents to manage their children's device usage.
Despite Apple's historic commitment to education and its position as a technology leader, Apple Screen Time remains a glaring weak spot in its product lineup.
Signing this petition will help make it clear to Apple that you want them to focus on this product. And since Apple is laser-focused on increasing revenue - taking some steps to reduce or limit your spending with Apple until they make these investments will help provide additional motivation.
Apple needs to increase their transparency with parents about their roadmap for parental controls with ongoing updates at least annually. At a minimum, Apple should deliver the following enhancements to parents by the end of 2024:
Fix persistent bugs: Apple needs to fix persistent known bugs, including inaccurate time reports, app time limits that don't engage, "sharing settings across devices" is inconsistent, and a lack of notifications for app requests.
Dedicated Screen Time App: Create a standalone app for easier access to Apple Screen Time settings and family management (similar to the new Password app)
Two-Factor Authentication: Add an optional second layer of security to prevent unauthorized changes to Apple Screen Time settings (if your child gets the password).
Device-level age verification: Enable devices registered to children to confirm their age with apps.
Enhanced Reports and Alerts: Provide more detailed alerts and comprehensive reports, including time-extension history, total time overages, blocked content reasons, communication attempts from unknown contacts, usage reports via email or push notifications, and extend historical data to two years.
Screen Time Policy Templates: Introduce preset configuration options for different age groups for simple setup and enable configuration sharing (similar to Apple Configurator 2).
Remote App Management: Allow parents to remotely install or remove apps on children's devices from the parent's device.
Safer iMessage: Implement the ability to place restrictions on group chats and allow the parents to set a maximum number of chat recipients. And prevent children from deleting text messages once they are permanently sent (so they don’t think they can “erase” the offending text message)
Visible Countdown Timer: Display a prominent timer before Downtime or App Limits activate, visible on both child and parent devices
Advanced Time Management: Enable parents to set custom time increments when extending app usage limits (beyond the current limited preset options) and introduce more complex timing options, including parent-approved start times and separate morning and evening allowances.
Purchase History Control: Give parents the ability to permanently remove unwanted app purchases from the family's purchase history.
App Privacy and Data: clarify the "Data Used to Track You" and "Data Linked to You" sections within the App Store (it can be confusing). And include a link, or a new similar section, to better explain the cybersecurity policy/standards used to protect the user data.