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iOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time
- hownowbrowncow 8y agoI’m thrilled about this change. Been trying apps to block for time such as Freedom, but it’s difficult to time blocklists, find how to block apps, and do all of this on a schedule. After a while I’ve realized every feature to effectively manage screen addiction while still remaining a good experience really needs to be baked into the OS. The direction Apple is taking looks fantastic—the only thing I hope for is specific Safari blocks in a addition to the app level timers.
- Aditya_Garg 8y agoI solved this problem a few years ago by setting up a parental restrictions block and intentionally forgetting the password. I may not be able to install new apps anymore, but at least I don't reddit on my phone anymore.
- corey_moncure 8y agoGreat. Can you manage your contact groups from iOS yet?
- cube2222 8y agoWell, they've shown exactly what Google had shown a month ago at Google IO.
- gehsty 8y agoI guess that’s probably when they started working on it as well /s....
- mikkelam 8y agoObviously they have spies ;)
- Tomte 8y agoThat's obviously untrue. A major difference between Apple and Google: Google does lots of fancy machine learning to make Google Now magically anticipate everything. Apple introduces a kind of low-key programming in graphical form to let the user shape Siri's abilities. I find the latter very interesting, it's a bit like Tasker lite. And more important, the first few times Google Now appeared on my phone I was creeped out. Just because I had googled an event weeks ago on another device doesn't mean I want you to tell me to leave now and present me with the map and traffic information!
- izacus 8y agoWhy are you talking about Google Now? There hasn't been any announcements on I/O about it, it's pretty much a deprecated brand. The common point here are phone use management features which were unveiled on both OSes in the same year it seems.
- cube2222 8y agoSorry, was commenting on the part mentioned in the title, which -was- already introduced at Google IO. Anyways, still, there's not much innovation happening there these days in my opinion.
- madeofpalk 8y agoI doubt they developed this entire system wide feature in one month. If they did, it would be _very_ impressive.
- cube2222 8y agoI'm not saying that. I just don't see any meaningful innovation.
- madeofpalk 8y agoDemanding 'meaning innovation' on a regular schedule is how you end up with TouchBar.
- Razengan 8y agoThen it's even more amazing that they could knock up a clone in just a month to announce it at their annual conference! Which happens to be the only time when they announce new OS features.
- mmastrac 8y agoIs this peak OS? Sure, these features are somewhat useful for busy individuals, but when was the last time we saw something revolutionary in OS design? I'm not saying everything should be changing year-after-year, but it's hard to get excited for these WWDC keynotes when it feels like they are stretching app release notes to 15 minutes of a visual demo.
- Angostura 8y agoI think these are some of the most exciting features that I've seen in iOS for a while, and I suspect it will push iPhone sales quite a bit as parents decide its worth getting their younger kids of that old refurb iPhone 4S. Also great to see the focus on performance improvements on old models.
- fleitz 8y agoNot quite, the OS is getting faster for older devices. Once the last remaining optimizations are done that will be pretty much it.
- exalsy 8y agoThey've delayed bigger features in iOS 12 because iOS 11 was such a buggy mess, according to [1]. [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/30/apple-to-focus-on-ios-performance-quality-issues-axios/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/30/apple-to-focus-on-ios-p...
- ash_gti 8y agoThis wouldn't be the first time Apple's had a perf/polish focused release. For example Snow Leopard had almost no major features and was mainly perf and polish over Leopard.
- stiGGG 8y agoIsn't Snow Leopard a complete myth? Back then they told to the public, that this is only a polish release, but they introduced the built-in anti virus solution, a complete rewritten Finder and QuickTime for example. I remember that Snow Leo had lots of bugs in it's .0 release, it was only stable after some updates like every other OSX version.
- aldanor 8y agoAbout time... as a parent, I’m very thrilled to see this get implemented.
- ianferrel 8y agoI really hope this includes a setting on Do Not Disturb to always silence calls/texts from numbers not in my addressbook along with the ability to schedule it for further silencing during sleeping hours.
- sorahn 8y agoThis is my most wanted feature. Similarly, if we could just send all unrecognized numbers to voicemail that would be awesome.
- mullingitover 8y agoThis, a thousand times. Bonus points for an option to skip voicemail for numbers not in my address book and simply disconnect them.
- ectospheno 8y agoThat would be a nice feature. Since it didn't exist, my default ringtone is a silent tone. I then give entries in my contact list a regular ringtone.
- ianferrel 8y agoDoes that mean that you have to change the ringtone every time you add a contact? Did you have to go manually change it for every contact you have? Or is there a way to change it en masse?
- ectospheno 8y agoIf you are a social person then yes, my method isn't convenient. You do have to manage everything by hand. I use my phone almost entirely for data and messaging though. Calls are rare.
- enraged_camel 8y agoThis is pretty damn clever. Thanks. :)
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- masterleep 8y agoI really hope this works better than the current awful, awful parental controls.
- tlug 8y agoI find it awkward how Apple is now bravely fighting problems that it has (co-)created in the first place. They invent all the clever ways how to limit the number of notifications and disturbances on the phone. But that's just attacking the problem from the wrong side. If you don't want notifications, just don't enable them! It's that simple. I may be old (42) but the only notifications that exist on my phone are from SMS and WhatsApp (which I occassionally use). I intentionally don't enable notifications about emails, as this communication medium is by definition not realtime. Of course I'm not on Facebook either, but even if I were, I don't see the point of having to check all the time what fresh pics of cats are other people sharing.
- givreh 8y agoSuch a binary approach is probably too extreme for many people. I think it increases the overall usability of the device if you are able to more granularly define when to and when not to receive notifications.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- baxtr 8y agoWhy is this a bad thing? They’ve might have started something but grant them they ability to change. Their intentions now matter.
- mfringel 8y agoYour anecdote on notification use cases has been noted by the Ministry of Statistics. Thank you for your participation.
- Apocryphon 8y agoGoogle has also introduced similar features at I/O last month. This is the industry as a whole trying to fix problems it originally created.
- ljm 8y agoEven better would be to adjust the expectation (or resignation) that an app/company has to send so many notifications in the first place, whether it's through push notifications, email, or some other channel, and has to constantly try to keep you 'engaged' in order to satisfy their metrics. I'm not sure that would change any time soon so the only easy way forward is to build software that mitigates it. I'll happily welcome any small step to improving this situation, whether or not Apple shares its responsibility in causing it. It's better than the alternative.
- lalos 8y agoThis is game changing, one thing is accepting a weakness or a negative side-effect and another is implementing features that mitigate that. Props to Apple, this is some impressive work that will have a net benefit for users. It is almost as if they care. Of course, they can do this since it does not go against their incentives like other companies that make money on the time spent of the platform (video watching, website browsing for ad clicks, etc). It is a good step in the right direction way better than nothing or sitting on the sidelines until regulation steps in.
- endless1234 8y agoAndroid is doing something similar as well https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/08/android-and-youtube-will-help-you-manage-screen-time/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/08/android-and-youtube-will...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lern_too_spel 8y ago> Props to Apple, this is some impressive work that will have a net benefit for users. It is almost as if they care. Of course, they can do this since it does not go against their incentives like other companies This post reads like parody, considering that these features are copied from Samsung [1] and Google [2]. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-switch/wp/2018/01/19/smartphones-finally-tackle-addiction-with-a-little-help-from-arianna-huffington/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... [2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/google-creates-new-android-controls-to-take-on-phone-addiction/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/go...
- Retric 8y ago[1] Not by Samsung they just made an exclusive partnership. [2] Recent announcement, not out yet. No idea how it's going to operate. In terms of actual features it's a step up from [1] and [2] is vaperware.
- swalsh 8y agoThis is great, as a parent. Next big thing I'd like is a better parental youtube filter (it has something now, but it's absolutely terrible).
- elahd 8y agoDownload the YouTube Kids app instead. https://www.youtube.com/yt/kids/ https://www.youtube.com/yt/kids/
- geofft 8y agoEverything I've read about YouTube Kids is that the filtering doesn't actually work well and is largely algorithmic. Apparently they finally added an option for curated channels (known brands / everything is reviewed by a human moderator) about a month ago, but you have to enable that option. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/business/media/youtube-kids-parental-controls.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/business/media/youtube-ki...
- hanspeter 8y ago"This item isn't available in your country". Why, Google?
- checker659 8y agoMy app's name was ScreenTime. Oh well, time to change it I guess. https://tryscreentime.com https://tryscreentime.com (PS: Please don't buy my app or anything. It's not 'released' yet.)
- dewey 8y agoThat looks like a pretty nice app! A good candidate to get sherlocked though ;)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tw1010 8y agoCool app! Advice with only warm and friendly intent: you might want to hire a really great designer to look over the landing page. It's mostly good, but it sends off a few unconscious red flags for me.
- checker659 8y agoThank you; I'm all ears. But, just to guess, I suppose the layout is inconsistent. Is that right? I tried to get the vertical rhythm correct but I suppose the discrepancy in the "inter-section" layout is jarring. Yeah?
- tw1010 8y agoThere's something about the layout and style of the latter part of the page. Maybe part of it is that the "buy for $10" button is repeated so many times. Maybe it's the intense green I'm reacting to. I was also felt something, I don't know what, when I saw the loading widget after pressing the buy button. I think I reacted both to the fact that I had to wait and its somewhat antiquated style (feels a bit 2012-ish; no maliciousness intended, maybe my tastes are weird). Of course, these might just be N=1 impulses, don't take my reactions on faith without a/b testing stuff.
- ljm 8y agoThis is a fantastic nudge towards encouraging better boundaries and healthier habits with tech, and having it at the OS level is far more effective than using an app that might not have the access it needs to properly do the job. I hope to see more ideas in this area as things like phones practically become an extension of our livelihoods, where leaving them at home can in extreme cases feel like you've lost your connection to the world, as if your entire life has to run through Instagram and Snapchat and Telegram. That it's also subtle and configurable means it remains a sensible nudge and not an imposition. I would love to see more developments towards building tech that gives you some space instead of constantly vying for your attention and engagement. For a slightly tangential example, it would be nice to sign up to a service and not be inundated with daily onboarding emails, upsell emails, weekly newsletters, account management requests, and Intercom chat popups because the marketing team doesn't have any chill and has to inflict this bombardment of utter tripe onto every unsuspecting user. Like an implicit condition of trying out an otherwise decent app is to accept this torrent of bullshit that just creates busywork. I think some apps offer the ability to suppress notifications for non-important things, which is a good start.
- jhulla 8y agoQuestion for the crowd: With this upgrade is iOS at feature-parity with Android/Google Family Link for managing child smart phone usage?
- canuckintime 8y agoAndroid still has a great edge by offering Multiple user feature on their tablets (rip?) and phones. Unless you have an iPad and iPhone for each child, or only have one child, the iOS management features are still not flexible enough.
- dep_b 8y agoStrangely enough iPads have it for years with an education profile.
- mullingitover 8y agoAll this, but they still implement the anti-pattern of only allowing Siri to control their own music App. I'm skipping this OS update.
- saagarjha 8y agoI don’t see how skipping iOS 12 will allow you to make Siri do more things. Plus, I don’t even think you’re right about that, since you can now send custom intents through Siri.
- mullingitover 8y agoIt won't make Siri do much less, and Siri is already the bottom tier of voice assistants. If Apple was going to allow Siri to talk to Spotify, they'd say that they were going to do it. Users have been asking for it. People who switch from Android notice that they can't do a thing that they used to be able to do. Aside from that omission, what other things does iOS 12 offer that I'd be missing out on? - Analytics about notifications: I don't care - Augmented reality: not compelling - New proprietary animated emojis: not compelling - Group Facetime: Facetime suffers from the Telephone Effect. I never use it because at least half of my friends are android people, and we all use Facebook because it's something everyone has. If you're talking about a group of people, it's extremely unlikely that everyone will use iOS, but it's extremely likely that everyone will be on Facebook. - New features in Photos: I don't use any of the features that have been added to Photos since...iOS 7? New features are just going to continue to slow down my device. - Various other features: nothing jumping out at me as something I'd risk an OS update over. It's a nice effort and I'm sure Apple has made the OS update they want to make, but it's not offering anything I've heard anyone ask for.
- briandear 8y ago> Augmented reality: not compelling While certainly a matter of opinion, but I think it’s the most important tech innovation in a long time. Just the Measure app alone has incredible implications. We are just scratching the surface of what this tech can do.
- baxtr 8y agoI think it’s great that Apple offers the tools to combat the new “tobacco”. Of course, anyone has to quit on their own
- jakozaur 8y agoI love this. It shows that Apple can make long-term improvments (limit smartphone zonbies) even at expense of short-term gains (App Developers may suffer).
- edge17 8y agoDoes anyone know if the usage data collected will be available via iOS API's? It would probably be a bit ironic if it were, but it doesn't seem out of the question either.
- newscracker 8y agoThere's no way that Apple, of all companies, would provide this information to third party apps via an API. Even if Apple put this under the permission request model and add a new permission, we should keep in mind that most people don't understand app permissions well. Imagine a scenario where WhatsApp prompts the user to allow it to get usage information to "help" the user, and in turn starts spying on activity on Telegram or competing apps and shares that with HQ so that they can work on manipulating the user even more to shift their attention to WhatsApp and away from other apps. Such a scenario sounds highly disturbing to me. Social platforms already have so much on their end to manipulate users into giving them their attention. There's no good reason to trust any of them with such information.
- duxup 8y agoI really like the idea of giving users more ability to manage their devices at the OS level. Apps, websites (everyone wants to send me notifications) are not going to do it as a group. The more customization I'm allowed and options to be human with a device the better.
- awat 8y agoI don’t consider myself phone addicted but it could be sobering to see my app usage broken into times instead of battery consumption percentages.
- manmal 8y agoThere is already an app for that: https://itunes.apple.com/at/app/moment-screen-time-tracker/id771541926?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/at/app/moment-screen-time-tracker/i...
- skinnymuch 8y agoThis gives you app times based on screenshotting the battery page. Won’t be as accurate as Apple’s implementation.
- newscracker 8y agoEven on iOS 11, it's possible to see the time consumed in different apps. Go to Settings->Battery and tap the clock icon (next to "Last 7 Days"), or even easier, just tap on any of the app rows below to switch between percentage or percentage plus time view (the time is shown below each app).
- thedangler 8y agoAnyone have a link to a list of all the api changes / enhancements that will take place.
- jedisct1 8y agoThis is great. I was already using dnscrypt-proxy to limit access to some websites during certain days/times, but restrictions at application level is even better, at least for iOS devices.
- sirmike_ 8y agoThis is cool i guess. iOS Nanny. The best part I think is the notifications. Looks like the ultimate STFU setting for apps. Glares at Facebook, twitter and work email /s
- joshe 8y agoLots of shade thrown at Facebook. Instagram and Facebook were the top 2 apps they demoed for reduction.
- tiglionabbit 8y agoTo be fair, Facebook's notifications are really annoying.
- threeseed 8y agoAlso arguably the two most popular apps in the world.
- 1123581321 8y agoCNN was the target of the new feature to ask for fewer/quieter notifications, too. However, the top shade went to Craig Federighi’s shot at Android: “It’s hard to say they have a software update model.”
- Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 8y ago> CarPlay adds support for third-party navigation apps displayed right on the car’s dash — joining music, messaging, calling and automaker apps. woohoo! Can I finally use google maps in my car then? I don't understand why the Apple Maps team has been so slow on features
- graeme 8y agoYes, you can. They showed an image of it onscreen in the carplay keynote. Google maps, waze, etc
- threeseed 8y ago> I don't understand why the Apple Maps team has been so slow on features Have they ? Every major iOS update has major updates to the Maps app. It is slowly bridging the gap with Google Maps and the issues are still mainly with POIs which Apple arguably can never fix. Unless of course they do their own Street View and invent their own captcha system.
- cptskippy 8y agoI thought Captcha was primarily used for model training and not actual POI parsing. Regardless there are plenty of third parties who are in this space that companies like Apple license their data from. There's no reason someone can't compete with apple on POI quality.
- threeseed 8y agoIt is used for model training. But the model recognises the street names and numbers which it can use to exactly position businesses. One of the biggest issue with Apple POIs are that they are often in incorrect (and sometimes ridiculous) locations. Apple already licenses its data from many providers e.g. Foursquare, Yelp but that only gets you so far. Google is much further ahead largely through their own technology.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sharkenstein 8y agoFunny how Software updates make me more excited than Hardware ones... I'm so excited for iOS 12! Also, iOS on Mac OS! I wonder what this means for the React Native devs... I have no experience on that platform but I'm curious about the potential impact of iOS + MacOS on that community
- jedberg 8y agoWhy is the name of the iPhone X "Jason's iPad"? This is a surprising lack of quality control from Apple.
- mongster 8y agoYou can monitor/moderate screen time for other devices you've connected in Family Sharing. That section talks about setting those access limits for others in your group.
- paul7986 8y agoWhere is some AR innovation within my camera's view ... like open my camera, point it a historic location and see how it looked in the past or show me information about a business. You know something like Google Lens! Maybe in a few years AR will be exciting or become useful like Touch ID did after awhile (for me at least). For now its just silliness as no killer utility or experience has been created yet. Measure ... there are tons of AR rulers out there now that are fun to use, but...
- yial 8y agoI've thought about that same kind of feature, even without AR and simply based on geo location would be cool... someway to quickly pull up historical photos and information about wherever you are at the time.
- paul7986 8y agoOr turn day into night time view or tell me this strangers name I’m talking to.. AR glasses are more suitable for those ideas. As for AR Wikipedia or AR Historcal View it would require a massive amount of crowd sourcing. Though Wikipedia did it. Overall AR as of today is lame it needs killer utilities or experiences like AR Wikipedia or whatever it would be called.
- CodeSheikh 8y agoI welcome this feature. Knowing that my kids will be brought up in the age of iDevices (whether I like it or not), having a "digital guardian" like Screen Time will be of great use and can be made part of your family life naturally vs imagine abruptly introducing this to todays teenager's life. Plus, it is a great tool for self-management as well. Weird a couple of weeks ago we were having quite a debate among co-workers about the lack of such important feature in todays smartphones. Sure there is already a similar feature in current iOS to view battery usage by app but it is not intuitive and requires quite a drill-down in settings.
- utefan001 8y agoI am thinking seriously about open sourcing this. It will log into sites to check for point progress and restore access after some points are earned. My daughter only needs 2 or 3 minutes of khan academy to earn enough points to get youtube back. I am proud of what my friend Kris and I built, but getting tired of managing a side project / playing startup. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/studycity/id1339396223?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/studycity/id1339396223?mt=8 website is studycity dot org
- scottmf 8y agoThis is a really great idea, but I wouldn’t have really got from the app listing and screenshots that this is what the app does. Your comment here explains it much better than the App Store description IMO. Maybe some help from a UI designer and a little rebranding could help a lot!
- utefan001 8y agoThanks Scott. I totally agree. Most frustrating challenge is that I have had many people (250+) say "this is amazing" etc. But it has been very difficult to convert that interest to a significant user base. Part of the challenge is at one end of the scale, parents don't care and at the other end of the scale parents have the issue under control. Even if parents love the concept, getting them to become users is way more difficult than I imagined.
- heydonovan 8y agoWould love to have something like this for myself. Perhaps watch a few Udemy/LinuxAcademy videos to restore my access to YouTube/Twitch, haha. :)
- andrewmd 8y agoApple’s changes amount to what the gambling industry has done to acknowledge and address gambling addiction: displaying pamphlets around casinos and suggesting that problem gamblers opt-in to a self-exclusion list. Helpful for some but doesn't change anything about the environment, which has little protections from products that are expertly engineered to get and keep you addicted. There should be developer API’s for this. The lack of API’s and the fact Apple thinks three product changes alone can solve a complex social problem speaks to how simplistically they are treating the issue. It’s a positive step forward, and necessary, but we should be able to bring an ecosystem approach to solving what many of us consider the biggest socio-technical problem today. This petition is a start: https://www.change.org/p/apple-allow-digital-wellness-developers-to-help-ios-users https://www.change.org/p/apple-allow-digital-wellness-develo...
- ivm 8y agoI have a feeling that it will be ported to macOS one day. Since I have a time tracking app, I'd better start preparing for getting sherlocked[0] in advance. [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sherlocked https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sherlocked
- agumonkey 8y agoGood that the tech world reacted to the pocket computer addiction
- rebelde 8y agoHelpful, but my kids will switch to their game console, another tablet, the computer or Netflix. When I am king, I will declare that ALL devices must support an API so that I can control my kids total screen time across all devices.
- lavezzi 8y agoKind of happy to see that Workflow will finally be integrated into iOS. Hopefully they have made some improvements to the functionality and to the depth of OS features it has access to.
- aeontech 8y agoI'm surprised this is getting so little discussion - for my money, that's one of the biggest announcements today, period. It should be awesome for power users.
- kalev 8y agoNot even a notable post here on HN. I really hope this works as has been shown yesterday, it looked so promising. Really great stuff for power users :)
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- maximegarcia 8y agoFinally some progress on notifications. Coming from N years on Android, that's my most annoying point. Grouped notifications are largely welcomed. I simply disabled those for Twitter/Telegram/Messenger because that's nearly one notif per message (kept Whatsapp because of too much miss otherwise). Hope it's customizable though (app dev or user) because I'd prefer my email notifications from Inbox/Gmail not grouped for different senders. And the other thing I miss so much is the "auto-dismissal" of notifications. When I read an email in inbox web client on my laptop, the notification for it instantaneously disappeared on my Nexus 5 (just that one notif). Not anymore with my iPhone. If I remember correctly, notifications API only allows a remove all or nothing behavior for apps on iOS. Do you know if there is any progress on that front?
- KillerRAK 8y agoAnd still no native calculator for iPad. Oh well, maybe they'll squeeze it in next year. Imagine the cheers and adulation that'll bring from the WWDC keynote audience...
- mseebach 8y agoI'd love for both Android and iOS to find a way to be smart about audible notifications. Low-hanging fruit seems to be to disable, or drastically reduce notification volume when the device is held in a hand and the screen is on. I get nervous ticks when someone is texting in a public space with loud notifications. Another feature that might make sense is somehow detecting when the owner of the phone is out of earshot. Phones left behind in an open plan office, getting notifications, ringing etc is very annoying.
- dpcan 8y agoLove the idea of a phone not making noise if its owner is a certain distance away! It also stops eavesdroppers and prying eyes who go over and press the home button to get a glance at who's texting the lonely phone sitting on the counter.
- kough 8y agoDon't you want your phone to make noise so that you can come back and get it because you have a phone call or message? This makes no sense to me.
- tinus_hn 8y agoIt’s antisocial to leave your phone about so it disturbs other people while you’re gone. It’s a mobile phone, take it with you if you need to receive calls or messages. If you don’t need to receive calls or messages and want to leave it somewhere, put it on silent.
- mattkrause 8y agoSurely it depends on where you leave it? Leaving it ringing for hours in a crowded office is obnoxious; leaving it on a side table in your house while you do some chores is totally normal.
- bschwindHN 8y agoAnd if you're at home by yourself?
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoI don't want information about how much I use my device. I want an "essentials mode" that will allow only phone, iMessage,email and gps for example.
- kristofferR 8y agoI've updated to iOS 12 beta 1 on my iPhone 7, and it's so much smoother and faster than iOS 11.4, it's like a whole new phone. :)
- ddtaylor 8y agoI'm hoping this is a good thing for us since it should give us the ability to tell iOS how to manage screen time better. Our product pushes the idea that screen time management is only half of the equation, since technically you could have already taken the phone or tablet away from a kid, but most parents don't do that because it creates an enormous emotional conflict. It's all about agency. There is an old child psychology example where a kid asks "Can I have a red popsicle?" and the parent knows there are only blue ones in the fridge. If the parent responds "No, there aren't any red ones left, but you can have one of the blue ones" then you're instantly the villain and you only exist in this world to deny them of their right to popsicles. But if you respond "Yes, you can have a popsicle whatever color is left in the fridge" you're their hero and it's the fault of the fridge for not providing their desired color of popsicle. Our system gives kids the ability to access more screen time based on them making measurable progress in studying and because of that parents are less villains and our app/system absorbs most of the hate. If a kid says their phone or tablet won't load a page a parent can essentially say "Looks like your phone says you need to do XYZ before you can access more Internet" Are other HN parents struggling with these issues? If so, do you think setting rigid screen time limits will help?
- Stanleyc23 8y agoI don't have kids, but I'm curious - you're finding that children don't blame the parent for putting the internet-limiting software on their device in the first place?
- jac_no_k 8y agoMe: Parent of a 13 and 9 year old with software screen restrictions in place. My kids clearly know who put the restrictions in place and the reason why. They also know that on request with a reason, I will unlock the restrictions. I find that this gating question sufficient that they police themselves.
- megaman22 8y agoHow long has it taken them to figure out how to get around the restrictions on their own ? I think the only reason I would put blocks in place on my children would be as a testing mechanism.
- rangibaby 8y agoHere’s my feature to reduce interruptions: turn off all notifications and app badges. It let me use my phone the way I wanted to
- CodeXs 8y agoAll I've ever wanted was a mouse support and not have to jump through ridiculous hoops to open up a file. I'm sorry touch does not cut it for a productivity working on large documents or any other program that requires repetitive precision.
- aetherspawn 8y agoApple: please make the alarm app bypass do not disturb mode and allow independent volume control (ie allow alarms at max even if the ringer is left alone). Sincerely, someone who is sick of having their alarm not work unless all their other apps are binging like crazy all night. This was so trivial in Android, it’s laughable I still need think about what I need need to do for the alarms to work properly. Also always paranoid I’ll forget a step and miss an exam or something.
- dionian 8y agoput your phone on vibrate, the alarm will always work with it on
- haikuginger 8y agoUm. If you're setting an alarm in the built-in clock app, it definitely works when Do Not Disturb is turned on.
- aetherspawn 8y agoThis does not match the physical testing I have been doing and my father has said the same about having issues with DND and the clock. So, I don’t really know what’s going on, then. But unless vibrate and DND is turned off and the volume is all the way up, sometimes the alarm just doesn’t work and I have missed stuff before. Android was really clear about this: there was just “no notifications”, “alarm only” and “all notifications”. I wish Apple would make a three state toggle like this and bundle it all together .. (I understand that you’re trying to tell me that alarm should be working, but it just isn’t).
- justrobert 8y agoThe alarm app on iOS can run into an issue where it will not play sound regardless of any other setting. It has existed in many versions of iOS. It has happened in iOS 10 and iOS 11, I don't know about the previous versions. They fix is to reboot the phone. I cannot trust it for critical alarms, so a simple device by the bed is required again.
- inertial 8y agoSad that it's still not possible to change notification sound for apps at the OS level i.e. for apps that don't offer the functionality to change the sound.
- jasonkester 8y agoInterruptions are the biggest downside of mobile devices, and this update still doesn’t address them correctly. The fix is simple: a big “OFF” switch at the top of the Notifications Settings Screen. In my mind, the only reason my phone should ever make noise on its own is when a phone call comes in from one of my contacts, or an alarm I set goes off. Notice that neither of those things are “Notifications”. Feel free to keep a list someplace of emails and texts that have come in. But I’ll check that on my time, so don’t ever interrupt me to tell me about it. Apps that want permission to appear on that list should have to explicitly ask for it, rather than getting it by default and forcing me to fish around in the notifications settings to turn them off for ever single app that I install. It’s amazing that no phone (or computer anymore) has anything approaching this.
- dwb 8y agoThird-party apps already have to ask permission to notify you in iOS, pretty sure they always have. Sure you have to turn them off for Messages and Mail, but I don’t think most people would be happy with a default where you’re not notified for those.
- jghjg 8y agodo not disturb bedtime? are apple users retarded milennials? Can't they just disable internet before going to sleep like normal people do?
- samat 8y agoI have just installed beta on iPhone SE and it feels much faster.