4 ms·

Apple says no Internet for those younger than 17

51 points by ajaimk 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago
I doubt this is intentional, probably just some oversight. If it is intentional they're just dumb.
- masklinn 16y ago
  It is entirely intentional. Likewise, parents can lock access to Safari via the parental controls. I utterly fail to see what's abnormal about it, let alone dumb.
  - papachito 16y ago
    It's dumb because a web browser should not be considered as something allowed only to people of +17 year old.
derefr 16y ago
Safari would have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser. The 17+ warning is just that—a warning, an indemnificatory disclaimer against lawsuits by angry parents—and only takes effect as a restriction if you switch on parental controls, which also, indeed, exist for Safari itself. (The "game" part is indeed an oversight—I imagine Apple just never considered that they could be publishing anything other than games that had "mature themes", seeing as 99% of Apps are things like invoice trackers and color swatch wheels, and don't really have "themes" of any kind.)
- spicyj 16y ago
  Actually, I believe that the store asks you "By clicking OK, you agree that you are at least 17 years old." or something like that and if you click Cancel, it won't download.
  - derefr 16y ago
    Right—they ask it to make sure that you're at least saying that you're 17 years old. They don't require it to be true; it just has to make any lawsuit you could later file get thrown out.
  - ajg1977 16y ago
    This is only true if your device does not have parental restrictions set. If it does and 17+ apps are restricted, you won't even get that far.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > Safari would have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser. In fact, Safari can be blocked through the Parental Controls on the iPhone.
- smokey_the_bear 16y ago
  My GPS tracking app contains the same warning, because we show the wikipedia pages about parks.
- papachito 16y ago
  Why would they get a lawsuit? AFAIK, adult websites are already required by law to put a warning. You don't get any such warning when downloading firefox or chrome last time I checked.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    AFAIK, adult websites are already required by law to put a warning. If they're based in the US, maybe, but there is more to the Internet than just the US. (I'm not sure this is an actual law, though. My guess is that it's a defensive measure against "won't someone PLEASE think of the children" and the resulting legislation. Self-regulation and self-preservation.)
    - papachito 16y ago
      Why don't firefox and chrome have such a warning then? > If they're based in the US, maybe, but there is more to the Internet than just the US. I just think it's Apple acting overly prude like banning US political cartoons etc. Being sued because your web browser has access to adult web sites doesn't make sense. Countries where those sites are illegal are already censoring those sites (China, Malaysia etc).
tlrobinson 16y ago
This is not at all surprising. iPhone allows parents to enable restrictions on purchasing application that can access adult content, which of course a generic web browser can. They can also restrict access to the built-in Safari browser. It's a much better solution than back when they were outright rejecting any application that could access arbitrary content on the internet.
pavelludiq 16y ago
I always found the idea of parental control of media to be rather badly thought out. What i mean is that my development as a young teen was greatly influenced by my access to violent and sexual music, movies and other content unsuitable for my age group, and yes, even pornography. I consider all of it to be beneficial, because it led to my current development as a person, and even though i don't conciser myself perfect, im quite happy with how I've turned out. Im not a parent but I'd guess that artificial restrictions on technology(which are also easily circumvented) are no substitute for good parenting.
- jsz0 16y ago
  I think parental controls are more about the parent(s) feeling good about themselves. Most probably realize they can't stop their kids from seeing this stuff one way or another but if they are proactive and enable parental controls they can feel like they did everything possible to prevent it.
  - papachito 16y ago
    Really? Enabling parent control on the iPhone blocks both Safari and Opera which means no access to wikipedia and other amazing sources of education just because they may stumble on porn which can be found everywhere anyway? There's nothing to feel good about this. In the meantime, I guess the iFart app is not forbidden, it looks more like "dumbing down kids" than "parental control" to me.
    - kellishaver 16y ago
      It's not about "dumbing down" kids at all. How many kids are accessing the internet exclusively via an iphone? It's a lot harder to monitor internet usage on a 3.5in screen that can be held in the hand than it is, say, a 17in monitor in the living room. I'm all for letting kids have internet access. I'm also all for monitoring it. You can't do that effectively with an iphone. Sure, kids should have access to the internet, but they don't need it on every single freaking device under the sun.
WiseWeasel 16y ago
All App Store apps that access user-generated content or browse the internet get this warning. Opera isn't being singled out. Nothing to see here.
ugh 16y ago
I guess this is what Gruber means when he says that iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. [1] Ever heard of parental controls? That’s what this is for. [1] http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed
- papachito 16y ago
  Forbidding teens to get access to the internet is considered good parenting now?
  - seabee 16y ago
    Whether it's good or not, there's still demand for it.
  - ugh 16y ago
    So, if I understand you correctly, Apple should decide what constitutes good parenting? More fine-grained parental controls would certainly be nice. But what exactly is your hypothesis here? Apple wants to force parents to submit to their ideas of parenting through their design of the parental controls feature on the iPhone? That seems like a pretty stupid hypothesis to me. It’s not that the parental controls feature is unworthy of discussion. I don’t think it’s particularly well designed. It just seems so completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that bad design must imply that Apple doesn’t want teenagers to surf the web. I’m utterly confused as to how a story like this can get more than forty upvotes on HN.
    - papachito 16y ago
      > So, if I understand you correctly, Apple should decide what constitutes good parenting? It looks like they do actually, forbidding +17 year old to access the web. > It just seems so completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that bad design must imply that Apple doesn’t want teenagers to surf the web. How is that bad design? It clearly states that you must be more than 17 year old to access the web.
ErrantX 16y ago
This is just poor wording of an important legal point; or, rather, "Apple are not responsible for what your kids browse for on their phone". Unfortunately we live in a world where a small subset of people will seize on any opportunity to blame a company for some sort of indiscretion - in this case, letting their kids access porn (or whatever). It's just legal ass covering which >99% of people, sensibly, ignore. No news here. EDIT: in iTunes I now see "application" not "game". So either they fixed it or it was a bug for some users.
gte910h 16y ago
This is just a hack to make parents able to prevent kids from seeing porn. It's likely opera's idea
w33dkid 16y ago
So that next generation of Wozniacs would never be produced.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

51 points by ajaimk 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

I doubt this is intentional, probably just some oversight. If it is intentional they're just dumb.

masklinn 16y ago
It is entirely intentional. Likewise, parents can lock access to Safari via the parental controls. I utterly fail to see what's abnormal about it, let alone dumb.
- papachito 16y ago
  It's dumb because a web browser should not be considered as something allowed only to people of +17 year old.

derefr 16y ago

Safari would have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser. The 17+ warning is just that—a warning, an indemnificatory disclaimer against lawsuits by angry parents—and only takes effect as a restriction if you switch on parental controls, which also, indeed, exist for Safari itself. (The "game" part is indeed an oversight—I imagine Apple just never considered that they could be publishing anything other than games that had "mature themes", seeing as 99% of Apps are things like invoice trackers and color swatch wheels, and don't really have "themes" of any kind.)

spicyj 16y ago
Actually, I believe that the store asks you "By clicking OK, you agree that you are at least 17 years old." or something like that and if you click Cancel, it won't download.
- derefr 16y ago
  Right—they ask it to make sure that you're at least saying that you're 17 years old. They don't require it to be true; it just has to make any lawsuit you could later file get thrown out.
- ajg1977 16y ago
  This is only true if your device does not have parental restrictions set. If it does and 17+ apps are restricted, you won't even get that far.
masklinn 16y ago
> Safari would have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser. In fact, Safari can be blocked through the Parental Controls on the iPhone.
smokey_the_bear 16y ago
My GPS tracking app contains the same warning, because we show the wikipedia pages about parks.
papachito 16y ago
Why would they get a lawsuit? AFAIK, adult websites are already required by law to put a warning. You don't get any such warning when downloading firefox or chrome last time I checked.
- jrockway 16y ago
  AFAIK, adult websites are already required by law to put a warning. If they're based in the US, maybe, but there is more to the Internet than just the US. (I'm not sure this is an actual law, though. My guess is that it's a defensive measure against "won't someone PLEASE think of the children" and the resulting legislation. Self-regulation and self-preservation.)
  - papachito 16y ago
    Why don't firefox and chrome have such a warning then? > If they're based in the US, maybe, but there is more to the Internet than just the US. I just think it's Apple acting overly prude like banning US political cartoons etc. Being sued because your web browser has access to adult web sites doesn't make sense. Countries where those sites are illegal are already censoring those sites (China, Malaysia etc).

tlrobinson 16y ago

This is not at all surprising. iPhone allows parents to enable restrictions on purchasing application that can access adult content, which of course a generic web browser can. They can also restrict access to the built-in Safari browser. It's a much better solution than back when they were outright rejecting any application that could access arbitrary content on the internet.

pavelludiq 16y ago

I always found the idea of parental control of media to be rather badly thought out. What i mean is that my development as a young teen was greatly influenced by my access to violent and sexual music, movies and other content unsuitable for my age group, and yes, even pornography. I consider all of it to be beneficial, because it led to my current development as a person, and even though i don't conciser myself perfect, im quite happy with how I've turned out. Im not a parent but I'd guess that artificial restrictions on technology(which are also easily circumvented) are no substitute for good parenting.

jsz0 16y ago
I think parental controls are more about the parent(s) feeling good about themselves. Most probably realize they can't stop their kids from seeing this stuff one way or another but if they are proactive and enable parental controls they can feel like they did everything possible to prevent it.
- papachito 16y ago
  Really? Enabling parent control on the iPhone blocks both Safari and Opera which means no access to wikipedia and other amazing sources of education just because they may stumble on porn which can be found everywhere anyway? There's nothing to feel good about this. In the meantime, I guess the iFart app is not forbidden, it looks more like "dumbing down kids" than "parental control" to me.
  - kellishaver 16y ago
    It's not about "dumbing down" kids at all. How many kids are accessing the internet exclusively via an iphone? It's a lot harder to monitor internet usage on a 3.5in screen that can be held in the hand than it is, say, a 17in monitor in the living room. I'm all for letting kids have internet access. I'm also all for monitoring it. You can't do that effectively with an iphone. Sure, kids should have access to the internet, but they don't need it on every single freaking device under the sun.

WiseWeasel 16y ago

All App Store apps that access user-generated content or browse the internet get this warning. Opera isn't being singled out. Nothing to see here.

ugh 16y ago

I guess this is what Gruber means when he says that iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. [1] Ever heard of parental controls? That’s what this is for. [1] http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed

papachito 16y ago
Forbidding teens to get access to the internet is considered good parenting now?
- seabee 16y ago
  Whether it's good or not, there's still demand for it.
- ugh 16y ago
  So, if I understand you correctly, Apple should decide what constitutes good parenting? More fine-grained parental controls would certainly be nice. But what exactly is your hypothesis here? Apple wants to force parents to submit to their ideas of parenting through their design of the parental controls feature on the iPhone? That seems like a pretty stupid hypothesis to me. It’s not that the parental controls feature is unworthy of discussion. I don’t think it’s particularly well designed. It just seems so completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that bad design must imply that Apple doesn’t want teenagers to surf the web. I’m utterly confused as to how a story like this can get more than forty upvotes on HN.
  - papachito 16y ago
    > So, if I understand you correctly, Apple should decide what constitutes good parenting? It looks like they do actually, forbidding +17 year old to access the web. > It just seems so completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that bad design must imply that Apple doesn’t want teenagers to surf the web. How is that bad design? It clearly states that you must be more than 17 year old to access the web.

ErrantX 16y ago

This is just poor wording of an important legal point; or, rather, "Apple are not responsible for what your kids browse for on their phone". Unfortunately we live in a world where a small subset of people will seize on any opportunity to blame a company for some sort of indiscretion - in this case, letting their kids access porn (or whatever). It's just legal ass covering which >99% of people, sensibly, ignore. No news here. EDIT: in iTunes I now see "application" not "game". So either they fixed it or it was a bug for some users.

gte910h 16y ago

This is just a hack to make parents able to prevent kids from seeing porn. It's likely opera's idea

w33dkid 16y ago

So that next generation of Wozniacs would never be produced.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]