The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2026 keynote is over, and to say there’s a lot to unpack would be an understatement. Apple revealed an all-new Siri experience, showed off more Apple Intelligence features, and even told us about minor improvements we can expect to see on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch.
The announcements were of course mainly focused on AI features, but Apple spent a few minutes walking us through a complete overhaul of parental controls across all of its devices.
As a father of three children aged 14, 16 and 18, I have been hoping for changes and improvements in Screen Time for over 10 years now.
Screen Time upgrades are coming
There is a completely new sign-up experience for setting up a new device, designed specifically for creating a child account. Apple will then take the child’s age, fine-tune the device’s protections, and offer a curated list of apps based on that age. A child account is required for children under 13 and is optional for children aged 13-18.
Safeguards include blocking adult websites, limiting access to age-appropriate content, and enforcing age-based restrictions on apps the child can install on their device.
I was especially excited when I saw that kids will be able to send website requests, much like the download requests they can send now.
When my kids were younger, we tried to limit their contact list to something we could manage, but as their circle of friends grew and they exchanged more and more contact information, management became incredibly frustrating and difficult. With this update, which should be released this fall for everyone and available now in developer beta, the child can send a request to communicate with a new contact.
Apple is adding several other features, such as adding bonus time in apps, as well as a complete overhaul of the Screen Time interface, which is very exciting and should make it easy to get a feel for Time settings, usage, and limitations at a quick glance.
With bonus time, I won’t have to approve multiple time requests or change limits with the intention of reinstating them the next day, but end up forgetting.
But it might all be for nothing
I hope parents take full advantage of all the additions and changes, but here’s the thing: If Apple didn’t fix Screen Time’s underlying bugs that often allowed kids to bypass the limits, it was all for nothing.
I play Whack-a-Mole with my kids and they have been coming to Screen Time for years.
Last week I noticed my son was spending more time in the Settings app on his iPhone. I’m not talking about going from nothing to five minutes. I’m talking about how he was spending between four and 16 hours in the Settings app.
Something was happening, but I couldn’t figure it out. The usage limits I had set for gaming and social media, as well as the bedtime when his device actually locks, hadn’t been changed, but somehow he was in the Settings app all night.
After a few days of this and denying any knowledge of why this was happening, I did some googling and discovered that when someone changes the date and time on their device, the Settings app often records that change as app usage.
Why change your date and time? Because this prompts Screen Time to reset its usage limits.
This was just the latest hiccup in my journey of trying to keep my kids safe while still letting them socialize.
Don’t even get me started on the years of pulling my hair out because Screen Time would randomly turn off or temporarily stop working for days after an iOS update. And of course, my children would never say a word. I can’t blame them.
At some point, after months of accusing my son of finding some sort of hack to get around the limits, Apple released a software update that explicitly fixed the exact bug. And boy, did I owe him a giant apology.
I stuck with Screen Time because any third-party parental controls require a subscription and installing profiles on your children’s phones, giving the company complete access to your child’s activities, which has never suited me.
I hope Apple has implemented the new Screen Time for the next generation of young children who will receive their first iPhones and iPads, but years of experience tell me not to bet against kids finding workarounds for almost everything in life, especially technology.
We’ve emailed Apple to ask if it’s harder to work around these issues, and we’ll update when and if we hear back.
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