Apple Admits To Bug in Screen Time Parental Controls

Apple's Screen Time controls are failing parents. From a report: The company's cloud-based Family Sharing system is designed in part for parents to remotely schedule off-limits time and restrict apps and adult content on their children's iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch models. Trouble is, parents are finding that when they use their iPhones to set restrictions on their kids' devices, the changes don't stick. "We are aware that some users may be experiencing an issue where Screen Time settings are unexpectedly reset," an Apple spokeswoman said. "We take these reports very seriously and we have been, and will continue, making updates to improve the situation." Downtime, found in Settings under Screen Time, is the tool parents use to define the hours each day that a kid's device is limited or completely unusable. But when they check the setting lately, they often see the times they scheduled have reverted to a previous setting, or they see no restrictions at all. This can go unnoticed for days or weeks -- and kids don't always report back when they get extra time for games and social media. Apple previously acknowledged the bug, calling it "an issue where Screen Time settings may reset or not sync across all devices." However, the company had reported the issue fixed with iOS 16.5, which came out in May. In our testing the bug persists, even with the new public beta of iOS 17.

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