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How to Remove Screen Time Limit on iPhone or iPad

written by applenws

You can easily delete Screen Time limits that have been set for apps or app categories on an iPhone or iPad, allowing unlimited time usage of the app or app category again, or to re-define a more specific Screen Time limit.

For the unfamiliar, Screen Time is a feature of iOS that allows for setting time limits on app usage, either for individual apps or even for entire categories of apps. It’s incredibly useful for iPhone and iPad usage, whether you simply want to reduce your own usage of a particular app or type of app, or perhaps especially for parents and childcare providers who want to limit device time.

This guide will show you how to delete a time limit that has been set on an app, or entire app category, through Screen Time in iOS. This works the same to remove Screen Time limits whether they’re set on an iPhone or iPad.

How to Remove a Screen Time Limit for Apps on iPhone or iPad

  1. Open the “Settings” app on iPhone or iPad

    2. Settings icon

  2. Go to “Screen Time” in settings *

    3. How to remove Screen Time limits on iPhone or iPad

  3. Choose the “App Limits” section of Screen Time

    4. How to remove Screen Time app limits on iPhone or iPad

  4. Tap on the app or category with a set limit that you want to remove and delete the limit for
  5. Tap on “Delete Limit”

    6. How to delete Screen Time limits on iPhone or iPad

  6. Confirm that you want to remove the time limit on the app/category by tapping again to “Delete Limit”

    7. Confirm to delete the Screen Time limit set in iOS

  7. Repeat the steps to delete other Screen Time limits if desired, otherwise exit out of Settings

Once the app limit or category limit has been removed, the app or apps in that category will no longer be limited by whatever time limit had been applied.

For example if you had previously set a Screen Time limit for social networking on an iPhone or iPad and then you removed the limit for the social networking category, then all apps that fall into that category – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc – could be used for an unlimited amount of time again (unless you set another time limit for them anyway).

Of course you can also disable Screen Time in iOS completely if you’d like to go that route as well, but turning off Screen Time also stops the reporting features, which many users like as it shows them how much time they’re spending in various apps and provides insights into their iPhone or iPad device usage.

Screen Time requires iOS 12 or later, so if you don’t have a newer version of iOS on the iPhone or iPad then you won’t find the ability to modify Screen Time usage let alone set it in the first place because the feature didn’t exist in earlier iOS releases.

* Note that if Screen Time has a passcode set in iOS, the proper Screen Time passcode must be set before you can access the specific Screen Time settings. You can always remove or disable the Screen Time passcode as well, but that’s a topic for a different article.

Do you know of any other helpful tips or tricks for removing Screen Time limits or deleting Screen Time settings on an iPhone or iPad? Share with us in the comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

December 18, 2018 0 comment
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How to Limit Social Media Use on iPhone & iPad with Screen Time

written by applenws

Want to cut back on social networking use? Or perhaps you want to reduce time spent with social media on a family iOS device? The iPhone and iPad new Screen Time feature can make that easier than ever before, by allowing you to put a time limit on social networking usage to a chosen time limit per day.

For example, perhaps you want to set a 15 minute daily time limit for social networking usage so that you or someone else don’t waste an hour a day mindlessly browsing through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or anything similar. That’s exactly the kind of limitation you can put into place on social media use with the Screen Time feature in iOS.


Screen Time requires an iPhone or iPad with iOS 12 or later, as earlier versions of iOS software do not contain the feature.

How to Limit Social Media Use with Screen Time for iPhone or iPad

This will show you how to set a simple time limit on all social media apps and social networking usage on an iPhone or iPad by using the Screen Time feature:

  1. Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone or iPad

    2. Settings icon

  2. Go to “Screen Time”

    3. How to limit Social Networking use on iOS with Screen Time

  3. Choose “App Limits”

    4. Select App Limits to limit time use for apps in iOS

  4. Select “Add Limit” under the App Limits section

    5. How to add a time limit for Social Networking use on iOS with Screen Time

  5. Locate and tap on “Social Networking” so that it is selected, then tap on “Add”

    6. Choose Social Networking to set time limit for in iOS Screen Time

  6. Use the slider to select the time limit you want to enforce on all “Social Networking” apps, then tap “Back” or exit out of Settings when finished

    7. How to set a time limit for social media for each day in iOS

That’s it, now you have a defined time limit set on all social networking and social media for that device. This will accompany all social networking apps and social media websites too that are accessed on the iPhone or iPad with Screen Time setup this way.

Once you hit that time limit and you’re in a social networking app, the screen will turn blank showing an hour glass icon and inform you that you have reached your allotted time limit for that particular app or app category.

You can always ignore the imposed time limit by tapping on “Ignore Limit” if desire (which can require a passcode to ignore the limit if you have set this up that way, perfect for parents and family), but ignoring a time limit for app usage or social networking sort of defeats the purpose of setting these limits within Screen Time.

How to ignore Time Limit in Screen Time for iOS

Screen Time can be very useful at helping you or someone else from cutting back on wasted time in social media and social networking, just be aware that if you’re reading something within a limited app, or watching something interesting like a video, and either of those are occurring within a screen time limited app, then you may hit the limit because you’re participating in the media consumption within a social app. Of course you can ignore the time limit, or just open the video or article in a web browser or something similar to continue to enjoy what you’re doing outside of the time limit.

Using social networking may have benefits for some people, by increasing dialog, keeping you up to date with events, following friends and family and colleagues from decades ago, or maybe you just genuinely enjoy falling for fake news and propaganda that is pervasive on social media, but for many others it can be a huge time sink with little redeeming value, or even outright harmful to wellbeing and mental health. The entire topic is fascinating and there are no shortage of studies on social networking, with mixed evidence showing varying outcomes related to social media use.

And naturally you can always disable Screen Time in iOS or remove the time limits if you’d like to at any time just by returning to the Screen Time settings and adjusting as appropriate.

Do you use Screen Time on an iPhone or iPad? Do you limit social networking and social media usage? Share your experiences and thoughts below, and if have any other tips or tricks that relate to this general topic, share those below in the comments as well!

Source: OSX Daily

December 13, 2018 0 comment
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How to Disable Screen Time on iPhone or iPad

written by applenws

Screen Time is one of the best features in iOS 12, allowing you to keep track of how often an iPhone or iPad gets used, what apps are being used, and perhaps best of all, Screen Time gives you the ability to easily set time limits for apps and categories of apps, and even set restrictions on content and privacy. While many iPhone and iPad owners will appreciate Screen Time, whether for better understanding their own device usage or for managing a childs device or someone else’s, some iOS users may also decide they do not want the Screen Time feature enabled and reporting usage data points or limiting app use at all.

If you want to turn off Screen Time completely in iOS 12 for iPhone or iPad, this tutorial will show you how to do so.


Note that by turning off Screen Time you will no longer be able to see the daily and weekly charts of device usage, app usage, reports on device pickups, limit apps use, limit device use, or any of the other associated features. However, it’s also noteworthy to point out that some users who found that iOS 12 battery life is worse anecdotally discovered that disabling Screen Time can improve their devices battery life. Whether or not you wish to use the feature on an iPhone or iPad is entirely up to you.

How to Turn Off Screen Time in iOS 12

Disabling Screen Time on any iPhone or iPad with iOS 12 or later is easy:

  1. Open the Settings app in iOS

    2. Settings icon

  2. Go to “Screen Time”

    3. How to turn off Screen Time in iOS

  3. Once at the Screen Time screen, scroll all the way down and choose “Turn Off Screen Time”

    4. How to turn off Screen Time in iOS

  4. Confirm that you want to disable Screen Time on the iPhone or iPad

    5. Confirm to disable Screen Time in iOS

Once Screen Time is off you’ll no longer have reporting of app use and device usage, you’ll no longer have time limit options on apps or device use, and all content and privacy restrictions are disabled as well.

How to Re-Enable Screen Time in iOS 12

Of course you can re-enable Screen Time at any point and turn the feature back on by toggling the appropriate settings switch again:

  1. Open the Settings app in iOS
  2. Go to “Screen Time” in the settings
  3. Scroll down at the Screen Time settings screen and tap on “Turn On Screen Time”

With Screen Time enabled again you can configure the options to limit iOS device use, restrict app usage, and much more. Screen Time in iOS is kind of like parental controls (or even self controls), so if you’re hoping to set a daily time limit of 15 minutes for social media apps or 20 minutes for gaming, or 10 minutes for a particular app, it’s very easy to do exactly that.

Do you have any tips or tricks or advice pertaining to Screen Time in iOS 12 for iPhone or iPad? Did adjusting Screen Time settings impact your battery life? Share with us in the comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

October 17, 2018 0 comment
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How to Use the New Parental Controls in iOS 12

written by applenws

Photo: Apple

Parents, to curb your kid’s phone usage, you may no longer need to hold their chargers hostage, yell out nightly countdowns (“Three more minutes!”) or draft up elaborate tech contracts that you’ll look at exactly once. At least, if you’re on Apple devices. The new iOS 12 parental controls are here, and they allow you to manage your children’s screen time—set app time limits, block off chunks of “downtime” and track their daily habits—all from your own phone. Here’s what you can do, and how to do it.

How to access the Screen Time feature for your child using your own device:

  • Make sure both of your devices are on iOS 12.
  • Set up Family Sharing if you haven’t already.
  • Go to Settings > Screen Time.
  • Scroll down to the names of those in your Family Sharing plan. Choose the child for which you’d like to set up parental controls.
  • Enter a four-digit Screen Time passcode. Choose one that you can remember and your kid can’t guess. You’ll need it to approve requests for more screen time.

Now, here’s a look at what you can do with Screen Time.

Lock Your Kid Out of Their Phone During Family Dinner or Bedtime

Photo: Apple

The feature: Downtime

How it works: Remotely schedule a block of time in which your kid’s device cannot be used, such as during family dinner or his little sister’s flute recital. During this stretch, an icon will appear on all his apps indicating that they are not allowed to be used. (Phone, Messages, FaceTime, Alarm and some other functions will still work by default, but you can shut those down, too, if you wish.) If there are apps that you do want your kid to have access to during the scheduled downtime—say, bedtime meditations or white noise—you can make them Aways Allowed.

Tip: It might help to talk about your limits with other parents in your neighborhood. If you all plan to block your kids out of their apps at the same time, perhaps they can—gasp—call each other on the phone or even hang out IRL.

Put Time Limits on Fortnite (or Any App)

The feature: App Limits

How it works: Set a specific amount of time that your kid can be on certain apps each day. You can create limits for either specific categories, such as Social Networking or Gaming, or all apps. (It’s a little frustrating, however, as you don’t get to determine which apps go in which categories.) A warning will appear five minutes before the time is up, preventing screams of shock and despair. Once the allotted limit has been reached, your child can send you a request for more time, and you can either approve it or not.

See How Your Kid Is Really Spending Her Time On Her Phone

Photo: Apple

The feature: Activity Reports

How it works: On your own device, you can check out daily and weekly activity reports showing you how much time your kid is spending in each app (or across categories of apps), along with the number of notifications he’s receiving and how often he’s picking up his phone. It’s a way to know if he’s sneaking in games during third-period math or playing Roblox when he’s supposed to be in his room reading.

The reports can also be a good place to start a conversation with your kids about screen time, especially if you’re tracking your own phone usage. (I am, and it’s slightly horrifying.) You can ask your children how much time they think they’re spending on their phones, and then compare that to the actual data. As Tommy Sobel, the founder and CEO of Brick, writes: “Most people use their phones twice as much as they think they do, so seeing your actual minutes spent can be an incredibly powerful impetus to get real with yourself and get motivated about the need to take control of your phone habits.”

Block Content and Turn Off In-App Purchases and Location Services

The feature: Content & Privacy Restrictions

How it works: We’ve long been able to limit kids’ access to music, movies and other content on Apple devices, but with iOS 12, we can now do all of this remotely. Under iTunes and App Store Purchases, you can choose whether your child may install new apps, delete apps or make in-app purchases. Under Content Restrictions, you can set content ratings for books, music, TV shows, movies and apps. (I like how specific you can get—for instance, you may want to block “explicit” TV shows while giving your kid unfiltered access to books.) If you don’t want any app to know your kid’s location, you can indicate that, too.

As your kids get older and show that they can use their phones responsibly, you’ll want adjust their Screen Time settings in a way that makes sense. Let it be an ongoing conversation. If you need some talking points, check out our age-by-age guide to setting smartphone limits for your kids.

Source:
LifeHacker

September 21, 2018 0 comment
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How to Stop Fortnite Purchases on iPhone and iPad

written by applenws

Fortnite is the latest gaming craze that seemingly every kid, teenager, and some adults, are obsessed with. The cooperative shooter game may be tons of fun for the players, but what can be less fun is the discovery of a big expensive bill from Fortnite by way of in-app purchases.

This article will show you how to stop Fortnite purchases and prevent any unauthorized buying or purchasing of anything from the in-app and in-game temptations.

How to Turn Off Fortnite Purchases on iPhone and iPad

Want to disable buying stuff and purchases in Fortnite on an iPhone or iPad? Whether it’s your own, a kids, or someone else’s iOS device, here is how you can disable the in-app purchase mechanism:

  1. Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone or iPad you want to disable Fortnite purchases for
  2. Go to “General” and then to “Restrictions”
  3. Tap on “Enable Restrictions” (if you have not done so already*) and then enter and confirm a restrictions passcode – note this will be different from the general lock screen passcode in iOS
  4. Locate the switch for “In-App Purchases” and toggle that to the OFF position

    5. How to disable purchases in Fortnite for iPhone and iPad

  5. Exit out of Settings as usual

With in-app purchases disabled, no app can make purchases from within the application. This will prevent any and all accidental (or intentional) purchasing from Fortnite as well as from other apps on the device.

* If you set the Restrictions passcode some time ago and forgot it, you can reset a forgotten restrictions password in iOS by resetting the entire device and restoring from a backup. A bit of a hassle, so don’t forget the restrictions passcode!

The Restrictions feature is sort of like parental controls for iOS, and turning off in-app purchases is one of a variety of features available to restrict individual device usage and activity on the iPhone or iPad.

This particular setup is going to disable all in-app purchases on the iOS device, but perhaps down the road a future version of iOS will allow for disabling or enabling specific apps to have the purchasing ability, while also retaining some control over spending limits.

There are other options to control purchases as well from Fortnite as well as other apps. For example, you can setup and use Family Sharing and “Ask to Buy” which requests a request to be sent to you (or the parent) before making a purchase. You can also set up an App Store / iTunes allowance which will set that as the limit of purchasing activity, though it should be noted that it can be easy to spend money fairly quickly with in-app purchases in many games, Fortnite included.

There are other ways to play Fortnite, and this article is obviously geared towards preventing purchases in Fortnite from an iPhone or iPad. But if you’re on another device, or the person is playing Fortnite on an Xbox One, a Playstation 4, or a computer, then you can follow separate instructions for disabling unauthorized purchases on those devices too at this Lifehacker guide. Thanks to Lifehacker for the handy tip idea!

Do you know of another way to stop purchases in Fortnite? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

April 28, 2018 0 comment
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How to Disable Bad Language in Siri on iPhone and iPad

written by applenws

If you don’t want Siri to ever dictate, speak, or write out explicit language, you can disable bad language in Siri for iPhone and iPad completely.

By disabling explicit language support in Siri, the virtual assistant will use asterisks to cover up curse words and bad language, like “s**t”, and will literally bleep explicit language if it is spoken or repeated by the AI voice for whatever reason.


To be perfectly clear, it’s not like Siri is going to swear at you if you don’t disable explicit language specifically. Siri will go out of it’s way to avoid bad language, and often reply to a curse word with something like “there’s no need to say that!”, but sometimes Siri can hear or interpret something wrong, a bad word can be fond when Siri is reading something on screen to you, or if you routinely use colorful language and four letter words yourself then it will be dictated and incorporated into the Siri commands you give to your iPhone or iPad. Also, some music and media content contains explicit language in the titles, and some foreign language translations may be dirty, and so those are additional situations where bad language could arrive from the typically polite Siri.

How to Disable Explicit Language in Siri for iOS

  1. Open the “Settings” app and go to “General” and then to “Restrictions” (you may need to enable restrictions to access this settings section, just don’t forget the passcode)
  2. Tap on “Siri” under the Restrictions settings
  3. Look for “Explicit Language” and turn the setting OFF to disable explicit language with Siri

    4. Disable Explicit Language in Siri for iOS

  4. Exit out of Settings

Now if you use Siri and feed it bad language (or vice versa if you can somehow get Siri to curse at you through a series of goofy Siri commands or legitimate ones), then Siri will use asterisks to blank out the bad word(s). Additionally, Siri will literally bleep bad language instead of saying it, sort of like what you hear if someone curses with bad language on live radio or TV, except it’s Siri doing the beep bleeping.

Siri bad language disabled

If you’re wondering why this setting is in Restrictions, it’s probably because the Restrictions feature of iOS is sort of like parental controls on the iPhone and iPad, and you can use other Restrictions settings in iOS to block adult content and adult websites too.

Siri disabled bad language

Remember, if you do set a restrictions passcode then do not forget it. If you forgot your iOS Restrictions password you will need to reset it which is not a particularly fun process that involves backing up and erasing the device, but as of now that’s the only thing to do.

And of course if you want Siri to have free reign with his/her language and be able to say **** at will, then re-enable the Explicit Language toggle again via Settings > General > Restrictions > Siri > Explicit Language.

This could be a particularly helpful tip for parents and educators, even if Siri will typically never report bad language unless it is dictated as a command. Or maybe you can use it yourself if you’re trying to cut out some particular words from your vocabulary? Who ****ing knows!

Source: OSX Daily

December 28, 2017 0 comment
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