Parental controls can help monitor and restrict a child's online activities. Control website access, block inappropriate content, set time limits, and monitor social-network posts. Window and Mac OS X offer a decent selection of parental controls, but they can’t do it all by default. In the same vein, parental control can be a challenge to set up on child-focused mobile.
Sep 04, 2018
Revolutionary in its release, the original iPhone had people camping out to be in queue to purchase the world’s first smartphone -- remember the excited iPhone fan who dropped and smashed his phone on air, just minutes after purchasing? At the time, the first iPhones possessed a hefty price tag, running $499 to $599, depending on the amount of storage; options were either 4GB or 8GB. And now we have the iPhone 8, with a number of exciting upgrades, including security.
Storage
While people have balked at the price tag on the iPhone 8, just as many people have stated it is worth every penny of the price. Beginning at $999, the iPhone 8 boasts three storage options: 64GB, 256GB and 512GB.
Screen
Most of the changes iPhone 8 customers will notice can be found within the screen. The new iPhone boasts a 5.8-inch Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) touchscreen, with almost non- existent bezels framing it. For the non-techies among us, an OLED screen provides the best picture viewing experience technology can provide. OLED screens are not backlit like traditional LED screens, instead, each pixel illuminates itself. The best example of this screen upgrade is that your iPhone screen will be viewable from virtually every angle, without distortion.
Minute screen bezels mean the iPhone 8 is virtually all screen, the “Home” button is now located on the side. Although Apple was unable to perfect screen Touch ID for this model, the side home button will possess Touch ID, reading your thumbprint to unlock your phone. Facial ID or facial recognition is another new addition to the iPhone 8, and provides an added layer of security.
iPhone 8 charging should be a breeze with wireless charging capabilities and boasting a potentially quicker charging time. Not to worry, the iPhone 8 will still feature a port for wired charging.
Minute screen bezels mean the iPhone 8 is virtually all screen, the “Home” button is now located on the side. Although Apple was unable to perfect screen Touch ID for this model, the side home button will possess Touch ID, reading your thumbprint to unlock your phone. Facial ID or facial recognition is another new addition to the iPhone 8, and provides an added layer of security.
iPhone 8 charging should be a breeze with wireless charging capabilities and boasting a potentially quicker charging time. Not to worry, the iPhone 8 will still feature a port for wired charging.
Setting Parental Controls
Whether you’ve got an iPhone, iPad or iPod (or are an Apple household with all their devices), adjusting the built-in parental controls on Apple products is relatively easy.
With a plethora of customizable options, we’re going to show you how to establish your first line of defense and set up parental controls on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.
Always remember that mobile device companies are not experts in creating parental control software, which is why having targeted software can help keep your family’s devices safe and secure. Net Nanny helps by providing parental control software that enables you to see exactly where your child is going online, alerting you to questionable subject areas, filtering what they’re viewing, and even blocking websites with inappropriate content.
If you're not an Apple user, learn How to Set Parental Controls for Windows 10 and How to Set Parental Controls for Kindle.
With a plethora of customizable options, we’re going to show you how to establish your first line of defense and set up parental controls on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.
Always remember that mobile device companies are not experts in creating parental control software, which is why having targeted software can help keep your family’s devices safe and secure. Net Nanny helps by providing parental control software that enables you to see exactly where your child is going online, alerting you to questionable subject areas, filtering what they’re viewing, and even blocking websites with inappropriate content.
If you're not an Apple user, learn How to Set Parental Controls for Windows 10 and How to Set Parental Controls for Kindle.
Set a Password
Select Settings > General > Restrictions. Selecting Restrictions will prompt you to create a Restrictions Passcode. Once you’ve created your 4-digit passcode, you will then see a wide range of options to either enable or disable, arranged under the following categories: Allow, listing all of your native phone apps (this is where you can disable the camera, Siri, and FaceTime, if you have a kiddo who likes to play with those functions), Allowed Content, Privacy, Allow Changes and Game Center.
Customize Restrictions Settings
For a while, I couldn’t figure out why I kept running out of storage until I logged into iCloud and saw the hundreds of photos my son had taken with his iPad. Disabling the camera saved me from continually having to purchase more storage.
I’ve also disabled Installing Apps and In-App Purchases, as my son often plays free games, which provide direct download links from in-app advertisements. I learned about in-app purchases the hard way when I allowed my son to play cookie jam on my phone; he purchased coins for additional play time, with a simple swipe of the screen (I’d not even purchased more playing time for myself!). While I discovered the in-app purchase quickly, I could have easily avoided the situation by setting the controls on my phone.
Apple allows users to customize the restrictions on iPhone, iPad, and iPod, selecting as much, or as little access.
Content
Using United States ratings system, you can disable access to music, podcasts, and news featuring explicit content, as well as books with adult content. Movies are also categorized by the rating system, you can see that I’ve restricted access to only those movies rated G and PG in the screenshot above.
Each content category allows you to customize the age range, or simply select Disable or Don’t Allow for that option.
Websites
Under the content heading, Websites allows you to customize what your child has access to on the web. You can allow All Websites, Limit Adult Content, and designate permissions for Specific Websites Only.
Under the content heading, Websites allows you to customize what your child has access to on the web. You can allow All Websites, Limit Adult Content, and designate permissions for Specific Websites Only.
Privacy
The Privacy menu allows you to further disable access to important items on your phone, such as your calendars, contacts, photos and social media accounts. You can also disable Location Services from the Privacy menu if you’ve not already disabled the GPS locater.
The Privacy menu allows you to further disable access to important items on your phone, such as your calendars, contacts, photos and social media accounts. You can also disable Location Services from the Privacy menu if you’ve not already disabled the GPS locater.
Allow Changes
If you want to safeguard your phone’s settings, be sure to access the Changes menu; here you can restrict your child’s ability to change the account, data use and volume settings.
Game Center
I have a friend whose tech-savvy elementary schooler not only figured out how to record his video game play but opened his own YouTube account and was amassing a following without my friend’s knowledge. You can avoid this, and similar scary situations, by adjusting the settings under Game Center.
While I like the ability to set a range of parental control settings on our iPhones and iPads, I don’t like the fact that the settings are not saved. For example, I spent five minutes customizing the restrictions for my son to be able to use my iPhone, and I disabled the restrictions once he returned it to me. The next time I went to hand over my phone, all of the customized restrictions had to be added, again, once I attempted to enable restrictions.
Net Nanny provides ease of use; settings remain saved per user, so you need only switch users to activate customized parental control settings on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod.
Russ Warner
Lauren B. Stevens
Lauren B. Stevens is a freelance writer and influential blogger. She is passionate about social media and literature.
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As a responsible parent, you want to set limits to keep your children safe. When you use your Mac parental controls, you get to say what your child can and cannot do.
You don’t have to have kids to implement parental controls. These controls work nicely in setting limits on employees, friends, or visiting relatives.
Presumably, you already set up your child as a managed account with parental controls. If not, click to select the Enable Parental Controls box in the Accounts window. When you do so, your child’s account goes from being a regular standard account to a managed account, with you as the manager.
In the Accounts window, click Open Parental Controls. Alternatively click Parental Controls inside System Preferences. Either way, you’ll end up in the same place. In the Parental Controls window, select your child’s name in the list on the left. Now you can decide which controls to implement:
![Parental Parental](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125852343/301139999.jpg)
- System: Parents can select the Use Simple Finder box to provide your child with the most restricted barebones desktop. Only three folders reside in the Simple Finder version of the Dock (My Applications, Documents, and Shared). Meanwhile, the only applications your kid gets to see are those you’ve designated by selecting the Only Allow Selected Applications option. In this System view, you can also choose whether your child can administer printers, burn CDs and DVDs, change a password, and modify the Dock. (Dock modification is categorically disallowed in Simple Finder.)
- Content: By selecting this tab, you can filter out four-letter words in Dictonary. You can also restrict Web access so that all your child supposedly gets to see are clean sites. Apple will make the decision on your behalf if you select the Try to Limit Access to Adult Website Automatically option. If you click Customize, you can list your own approved sites, as well as those you don’t want your child to view. To see some of the sites that meet Apple’s approval, click Allow Access to Only These Websites. (Discovery Kids, PBS Kids, and Smithsonian Institution are among the sites that made Apple’s list.)
- Mail & iChat: By selecting Limit Mail and/or Limit iChat, you get to approve who your child can exchange e-mails and hold chats with through instant messages. You can also receive an e-mail permission request should your child attempt to communicate with someone who isn’t on the OK list.
- Time Limits: It’s not only a matter of who your child would like to interact with or what programs he wants to play around with — it’s also a matter of when you let him do so. By dragging the sliders shown in this figure, you can establish weekday and weekend time restrictions. In other words, you can prevent access to the Mac when it’s time for him to go bed, choosing different times on school nights and weekends. Your child will get a fair warning shortly before shut down time so that he can save his work. He’ll also get the opportunity to ask for more time.
- Logs: Here’s where you get to, um, monitor (that’s the nice way of saying it) your child’s behavior. You can see the Web sites he visited or tried to visit), the applications he used, and who he chatted with. You can log activity for one week, one month, three months, and so on. And you can group logs by contact or date.
Is your child using another Mac in the house? You can remotely manage parental controls across all the Macs in your home network. You’ll have to set up an administrator account across all the computers you want to manage. In the lower-left corner of the Parental Controls window, click the small gear icon (just above the padlock). From the pop-up menu, select Allow Remote Setup. Repeat this exercise on each Mac you want to manage.