In a recent report published by the Wall Street Journal, it has been discovered that a persistent bug in Apple’s Screen Time parental controls is enabling children to override daily usage restrictions set by their parents on iPhone handsets. Screen Time was intended as a way for parents to manage their children’s screen usage, but this glitch undermines its functionality.
Glitch Hinders Screen Time Functionality
The flaw arises when parents establish time constraints for their children, which the Screen Time feature does not recognise. This issue continues to prevail despite being identified in May and was expected to be rectified soon. The tip-off for many parents was the sudden absence of requests from their children for additional screen time.
One specific feature, Downtime, has been notably troublesome. This setting, designed to block access to the device entirely, has repeatedly failed to save correctly. In some instances, the Downtime limits had to be set three times before the changes were accurately saved. This has been a subject of discussion on the Apple Community website, where over 2,300 posts regarding the issue have been noted.
Apple’s Response and Forward Planning
Apple acknowledged the ongoing problem and affirmed its commitment to working on solutions. However, no specific timeline was provided. “We are aware that some users may be experiencing an issue where Screen Time settings are unexpectedly reset,” stated an Apple spokeswoman. “We take these reports very seriously and will continue to make updates to improve the situation.”
Screen Time was introduced with iOS 12 in 2018 and has been a useful tool for parents who want to monitor their children’s iPhone usage. Its features include measuring daily usage and sending weekly notifications indicating whether usage has increased or decreased.
The iOS 16.5 update, released in May, addressed an issue with Screen Time settings not being retained. However, some parents reportedly continue to encounter the issue on devices updated to iOS 16.6 and the iOS 17 public beta. The timeline for when Apple plans to roll out additional improvements to Screen Time is yet to be clarified.
It may be noted that new Apple products launching soon include the iPhone 15 series in September and new Macs and iPad Pros in October.
