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Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

wired.com

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Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#111

Post by Aurornis »

Marsymars wrote: post #107
Aurornis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia was one of the first countries to institute social media bans under a certain age. Reading the reports and commentary from parents there has been fascinating, but not really surprising if you remember what it's like to be a kid. The most positive thing I read was that the kids are spending less time on social media in front of adults (like at the dinner table) because they're not supposed to be on social me…

The upside of well-crafted social media bans for kids under a certain age is that you can use them to apply financial pain to social media companies for failing to prevent kids from signing up.

Applying stiff financial penalties for allowing kids to sign up for social media sites is another way of saying that you want to have to provide your ID to log in to social sites.

Reddit, YouTube, Discord, and even Hacker News qualify as social sites. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to start providing ID to log in to everything.

If you think these imaginary laws would only apply to Facebook and TikTok, you must have missed all of the discussion where they've been extended to many more sites with social features. Goodbye privacy!

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#112

Post by roboror »

qup wrote: post #9
flippyhead wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it such a hassle to keep locked down I gave up. Like, he'd be so aware that he'd find ways to watch me enter the PIN code when adjusting the settings. I'd have to be ever-vigilant and I got tired of it.

Try discipline

Children don't have fully formed brains. There's a wildly varying ceiling on the efficacy of discipline.

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#113

Post by odo1242 »

jkestner wrote: post #80
baxtr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had some friends over last form the US. One 11 yr kid in the group was bored and said: ok I’m gonna go home now, I need the keys please. He walked home by himself - maybe 500 meters… For us Europeans it was nothing to notice really, but the Americans were absolutely shocked.

I don’t think you can profile this as American. Are they conservative suburbanites? My kid walks to/from school longer than that. Many kids take public transit in big cities. Rural kids may ride a motorbike much further.

Well, it is a pretty American thing for this to be the case. Americans have been arrested for letting kids walk 500 meters on their own before (in certain neighborhoods)

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#115

Post by wongarsu »

moralestapia wrote: post #61
wpm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the idea of tagging my kid with a tracker like they're a wild bird being tracked is repugnant

Just a suggestion, be more mindful when you make comments involving other people's kids. (which is generally a no-no unless you're invited to) On the internet is fine, but I've been to places around the world where a comment like that would result in black eyes, missing teeth, etc.

Kids are living beings. If people don't want to hear about how they paint their car that's one thing. But if they don't want to hear any comments on how they treat a fellow human that's very concerning

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#116

Post by judge2020 »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #103

I discovered and tried to use this feature to turn an older iPhone into a dumb phone for myself, but hit several blockers 1. It’s incredibly slow to transition in and out of the mode, as mentioned in the article, which made setting it up (constant tweaks) very painful 2. For messages and calls, you were limited to select contacts only. So I couldn’t just text/call a number when I needed to. They may have polished the…

now that it has received attention, Apple might just throw another engineer at it :)

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#117

Post by kspacewalk2 »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #103

I discovered and tried to use this feature to turn an older iPhone into a dumb phone for myself, but hit several blockers 1. It’s incredibly slow to transition in and out of the mode, as mentioned in the article, which made setting it up (constant tweaks) very painful 2. For messages and calls, you were limited to select contacts only. So I couldn’t just text/call a number when I needed to. They may have polished the…

#2 seems like a feature, not a bug. I certainly don't want my 11 year old texting/calling unapproved numbers, way too young for that.

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#118

Post by judge2020 »

sbayg wrote: post #63
Cider9986 wrote: post #6

Mobile Device Management (MDM) is the only effective way to restrict idevices. All you need is a macbook and Apple Configurator. You can remove safari, blacklist or whitelist websites, block installing apps, block deleting apps. It's really customizable. Edit: expanded acronym.

MDM is the worst part of iOS. It undermines all of apple’s security claims, basically making iOS windows. Devices should not be able to be remotely controlled.

MDM enables enterprises to control how the phones they own behave. If anything it makes it more secure, if an enterprise were to only allow allowlisted apps to run on it.

The only issue is BYOD via MDM (when it's not via "Work Profile"), which is somewhat scary from a user perspective, especially from how hard it is to tell what permissions they might be able to spring on you at any time.

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#119

Post by EdwinRobbins »

turtlebits wrote: post #114

It's still a smartphone. The perfect dumb phone is just a dumb phone. (Bonus, they're an order of magnitude cheaper than a decent smartphone).

Similar initial thought, but in the article they say they want their kid to be able to use maps apps to be able to navigate if they get lost.

Re: Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone

#120

Post by judge2020 »

eigencoder wrote: post #57

I like the feature, but I don't like the assumption at the beginning. > Come September, he will have to walk across town to school on his own. But if he's going to be walking around out in the world without me, then a tracking tag won't cut it. He is far too young to have unfettered access to the internet and social media platforms, but what if he gets lost? A classic Nokia, supplying just texts and calls, won't come…

Only issue is that kids going outside alone has become highly stigmatized in society to the point where doing so gets you jailed and charged[0].

The kid will grow up to almost always be able to contact most any human in the world. Knowing how and when to do that is probably going to be a more useful skill.

0: https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/is-it-a-crime-to-let-you...

Side note: As above article states, after this arrest SB110 was passed to specifically outline what is reasonable for this situation.

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