5 ms·

> - ditch the fruit phone, get a device which is supported by LineageOS. Alternatively, you could use the parental controls built into that "fruit phone" to do

> - ditch the fruit phone, get a device which is supported by LineageOS. Alternatively, you could use the parental controls built into that "fruit phone" to do all your recommended blocking without the hassle of setting up your own server, rooting a phone or giving 3rd party software administrative control over your kid's phone. Screen Time limits can be used to set limits (or hard blocks) on both applications and their associated websites. You can limit access to sets of apps to specific times of day, you can prevent the installation of new applications, or require remote approval of new applications. There's a number of other options in there too, and nothing you described seems to my recollection like you can't do with the built in tools.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
I was going to say that. Apple can do all that was mentioned, and I'm hardly against Apple, but they do give strong parental controls. Drives me crazy to give a 1000$ phone to a child that don't need it
hagbard_c 1y ago
Here's why to ditch the 'fruit phone' from the 'fruit factory': no functional firewall on those devices, anything Apple is free to do whatever it wants according to the whims of Cupertino, not nearly the level of fine-grained control you can achieve with the mentioned setup, horribly expensive, subject to forced upgrades due to planned obsolescence, you need to totally buy in to their 'ecosystem', sleazy tricks like on-device content monitoring to 'protect the children', limited free software availability, etc. There are more reasons related to the freedom AOSP-derived Android distributions give for those who want to have more control over what the devices can be used for and which network resources they can connect to. It comes down to the difference between having a Linux-based device with near full access (with the exception of the radio firmware) and a factory-sealed no-serviceable-parts-inside device.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  The point about control has some validity, but support lifetimes on iPhones/iPads are generally among the longest in the industry, at least if going by how long you continue to get full security updates. There’s a good chance that various Android devices (though not all) will continue to get LineageOS updates for longer, but that’s caveated by things like baseband ceasing to be updated and becoming permanently vulnerable. Depending on the manufacturer this can happen in as short of a period of time as ~3 years.
  - hagbard_c 1y ago
    Support lifetimes on AOSP-derived distributions outpace those from all commercial vendors - and it is that iteration of Android which I use, not vendor distributions. I don't user commercial operating systems on my computers and and happy to skip them on my mobile devices as well. Baseband vulnerabilities are not the thing to worry over, the closed-source radio firmware blob is a leaky bucket by design which allows the TLA's of the world to use these devices for monitoring purposes and no update from ${vendor} is going to change that. If you don't want to be subjected to this you can not use devices which connect to 2/3/4/5G networks no matter how virtuous the vendor claims to be.
- alwillis 1y ago
  You can use Apple Configurator [1] to go beyond ScreenTime offers, including limiting which Wi-Fi networks can be connected to, restricting access to apps and the App Store. You can even remote wipe an iPhone remotely if necessary. Works on iPads, Macs and Apple TVs too. [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/intro-cadf1802aed/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/intro...
insane_dreamer 1y ago
Screen Time limits don't work for us -- they are repeatedly reset on their own. I have not found a solution to that. I have this happen on both of my kids' devices (phone for the older one, iPad for the younger one). It's a huge source of frustration.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago

I was going to say that. Apple can do all that was mentioned, and I'm hardly against Apple, but they do give strong parental controls. Drives me crazy to give a 1000$ phone to a child that don't need it

hagbard_c 1y ago

Here's why to ditch the 'fruit phone' from the 'fruit factory': no functional firewall on those devices, anything Apple is free to do whatever it wants according to the whims of Cupertino, not nearly the level of fine-grained control you can achieve with the mentioned setup, horribly expensive, subject to forced upgrades due to planned obsolescence, you need to totally buy in to their 'ecosystem', sleazy tricks like on-device content monitoring to 'protect the children', limited free software availability, etc. There are more reasons related to the freedom AOSP-derived Android distributions give for those who want to have more control over what the devices can be used for and which network resources they can connect to. It comes down to the difference between having a Linux-based device with near full access (with the exception of the radio firmware) and a factory-sealed no-serviceable-parts-inside device.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago
The point about control has some validity, but support lifetimes on iPhones/iPads are generally among the longest in the industry, at least if going by how long you continue to get full security updates. There’s a good chance that various Android devices (though not all) will continue to get LineageOS updates for longer, but that’s caveated by things like baseband ceasing to be updated and becoming permanently vulnerable. Depending on the manufacturer this can happen in as short of a period of time as ~3 years.
- hagbard_c 1y ago
  Support lifetimes on AOSP-derived distributions outpace those from all commercial vendors - and it is that iteration of Android which I use, not vendor distributions. I don't user commercial operating systems on my computers and and happy to skip them on my mobile devices as well. Baseband vulnerabilities are not the thing to worry over, the closed-source radio firmware blob is a leaky bucket by design which allows the TLA's of the world to use these devices for monitoring purposes and no update from ${vendor} is going to change that. If you don't want to be subjected to this you can not use devices which connect to 2/3/4/5G networks no matter how virtuous the vendor claims to be.
alwillis 1y ago
You can use Apple Configurator [1] to go beyond ScreenTime offers, including limiting which Wi-Fi networks can be connected to, restricting access to apps and the App Store. You can even remote wipe an iPhone remotely if necessary. Works on iPads, Macs and Apple TVs too. [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/intro-cadf1802aed/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/intro...

insane_dreamer 1y ago

Screen Time limits don't work for us -- they are repeatedly reset on their own. I have not found a solution to that. I have this happen on both of my kids' devices (phone for the older one, iPad for the younger one). It's a huge source of frustration.