Comment by nominalprose
10 months ago
You can achieve the same more easily using Screen Time, and having a trusted friend or partner enter the screen time passcode. Still possible to override with your Apple ID, but this is a significant enough speed bump that it works (for me anyway).
I do this too, and have them set the recover apple id to their own. Been averaging ~1.2 hours per day screentime the last few months (mostly messaging apps).
Basically in "downtime" mode all the time with a few "Always allowed" app. One thing is, you're phone (and it's browser) is pretty damn useless. Overtime you realize that a lot of things you need to lookup don't need to be looked up, etc but it can be frustrating at first.
That's how my children's iPads are too. Permanent downtime, with a few always allowed apps, and the rest on demand. And indeed, the most frustrating part is when my daughter needs to do some research for school. I'd have to allow each and every website she visits, so I temporarily un-downtime her phone instead...
Edited to add: for some reason, time limits never worked for my kids (they could always override them with one click). That's why I had to opt for permanent downtime.
> That's how my children's iPads are too
Hah! Says something about my self control!
Yeah it's usually trouble once a week. I recently needed to pay for parking using a QR code had to finish it in the 1 minute I had. Another appointment asked me to fill some online form and their reaction when I said "my phone is blocked from the internet" was funny. Turns out they still have paper forms when needed.
> time limits never worked for my kids (they could always override them with one click).
Huh, that's weird. Seems to work ok for mine in limiting their iPad use. They can request more time and I can decide to grant it or not, I get choices of 15 minutes, 1 hour or all day.
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You can block a lot of sites directly in router setup. It is password protected and almost impossible to override or hack.
In case your kids hack the router you know that they have Kevin Mitnick skills :)
pretty sure if you un-downtime a non-safari browser it applies to all websites.
I've spoken to quite a few people that do this which was very interesting, especially how a hard lock has helped them hard reset and start building healthier phone habits
the only thing missing from this setup is the ability to unlock remotely (as I can with my kids' devices). for some reason apple won't let an adult (fully) manage the screen time of another adult.
my wife has the password for my screentime, but i can't send her a request if we're physically apart. which means i'm out of luck, or she has to share the actual code with me, which then requires her to change it (and remember the new one)