Why Does Google Offer Better Control Over Family Devices Than Apple?

Alternate, angrier headline: APPLE, JUST LET ME LOCK MY DAUGHTER'S DEVICE WHENEVER I WANT.

Photo by Teddy GR on Unsplash

Last summer, I wrote about how I gave my oldest daughter—then seven, now eight—a phone. I use “phone” in the loosest possible terms—she wanted a camera. That it contains apps is an afterthought. Her “phone” was a junk device forgotten to time in a drawer, and even though the device was set to “English,” huge chunks of the phone remained in Chinese. (I was sent the phone as part of a device some years back.)

We’ve had a few incidents where the phone was almost lost, and while losing the phone wouldn’t be a big deal, my daughter would’ve been devastated to lose her carefully edited photos and videos. While cleaning out my office recently, I discovered yet another abandoned phone, this time an old Google Pixel from the early Stadia days.

Our family is built around Apple devices, but the Pixels are decent enough phones, and more importantly, it would mean her photos could be backed up to the cloud and Google has parental controls akin to the ones I’m familiar with on Apple devices.

What I didn’t expect, though, was to discover how great Google’s experience is.

I want to start with my most basic gripe/compliment, in the hope Apple will listen. 

Google calls its tools Family Link. It’s an app on most devices, including iPhones and iPads, but it’s also available on the web, which means I can manage what’s going on, even if I’m on my Windows machine. Apple’s interface requires Apple devices, which isn’t the end of the world, because I already own a ton of them, but it felt worth noting.

(Apple has a web interface for viewing your family settings, but you cannot actually change any of those settings without actively picking up and using an Apple device. The alternative is typing in an admin code into your child’s device to provide time.)

Anyway, when you load up Family Link, here’s the first thing you see. It’s important.

A regular scenario in our house is a child wants to finish a video, wrap up a game—whatever. On Apple devices, children can then ask for three screen time extensions:

• 15 minutes

• An hour

• All day

That’s it.

These three options do not encompass the human experience. I’d love a hyper specific option, like only until the video currently playing on YouTube finishes. I get why you can’t do that, but why not a custom timer, because I know how long the video is? 

Absent that, let the parent decide lock the device whenever they want.

…which, of course, is exactly what you can do here!!!!! Google calls it “bonus time,” separate from whatever limits you might set for individual apps like, say, YouTube.

One click further and…

This makes me want to scream, because it’s what I want—on the wrong platform.

The usefulness of this option comes up in situations where we’re trying to trust our kids to make a good decision. Let’s say I ask my four-year-old to turn off their device after finishing a video. I know the video is 17 minutes long, which means I need to give her an entire hour of additional screen time for the video to finish. As any parent knows, it’s very easy to get distracted. Suddenly, they’ve been watching for 30 minutes.

[rubs temples]

It’s much easier to settle an argument with a young child about a device when the device magically locks, rather than you having to take it away from their angry hands.

There are fun advantages of Apple’s approach if you’re in their device ecosystem. It’s nice to tap a button on my watch to approve or deny screen time or in-app purchases.

But Google has the superior idea of bundling family device management into a single, focused app. Apple, instead, asks you to dive into the Settings app and drill further. 

All of this, ultimately, is about exerting the proper amount of control. Granular control.

These issues within Apple’s ecosystem have existed for years. I assumed it operated similarly on other platforms, when in reality, Google’s been doing it the right way for a minute now. We’re not going to ditch our iPads, but Apple has some real work to do.

Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

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Also:

• I realize it’s maybe a little bizarre to get heated about such a specific feature, but this has bugged me for years. I cannot believe Google nailed it so specifically.

• My daughter’s phone, once again, does not have a SIM card. She’s primarly using it to take photos, talk with friends via Messenger Kids, and run the battery dry in record time by trying to play Roblox on it. It is, in many ways, just a small tablet.

• This is also fueled by the fact that she often hangs out with older kids in the neighborhood, who all have phones. The device is a form of fitting in for her.