REVIEW: Apple iOS 8 Family Sharing —A digital parent’s dream come true?

When iOS 8 came out, I immediately (well, six hours later) updated my iPad and the iPad2 that I let my 4-year-old daughter use. It came with a new feature that I’d always been praying for: Family Sharing.

At first glance, it’s a digital parent’s dream come true. What parent wouldn’t want some way to regulate their child’s device use.

 

It’s a shame that Apple isn’t doing much to promote this feature. Family Sharing definitely answered a lot of child safety and gadget responsibility concerns I know most parents have.

 

Here are just some of the things you can do with Family Sharing and how parents can maximize their use:

 

You can share your apps to up to 6 family member accounts (4 kids max, like the BIR), even if those family members have their own Apple IDs. As long as these accounts are connected to you through Family Sharing, all the apps you and your family members have already purchased can be shared freely within the group.  No need to repurchase an app simply so other family members can enjoy it. It’s also helpful when your child borrows Apple devices from different family members, they can download (for free) that educational app or game you’ve already downloaded for your child.

 

It also allows children under 13 to have their own account linked to their parent’s account. Once they reach 13, there’s an option to give the account limited autonomy on privacy and purchases and full autonomy once the child reaches 16. What good could come from kids having their own Apple ID? A lot of good, actually:

 

 

Track your child's device via 'Find My iPhone.' Before, all devices should be sharing the same Apple ID to track via Find My Iphone. Family Sharing allows you to track your child’s device even though you have different Apple IDs. 

 

While these features are really helpful for parents and children using iOS devices, there are some features I feel they may have left out:

 

Time Limits. I know a lot of parents leave their iPads and iPhones with their child’s yaya. You can tell your yaya to set time limits on use but you can never be sure that these rules would be enforced. It would be nice if Apple could have a time lock feature that allows the child to have access to their account only during certain times (after class, after dinner, etc). MS Windows already has this with their parental control feature for years, so I’m hoping Apple would do this with the next update.

 

Parental Remote locking. Yes, you can lock a device using Find My iPhone but there no stopping an ingenious child from trying to access his or her own account in a different device. There should be a separate parental locking feature that is easy for a parent to get into, so no matter what Apple device my daughter uses, she would understand that NO means NO!

 

Activity Reports. As a parent, I would want to get activity reports from my child's device, specially pertaining to unauthorized websites and contacts. I know that sounds a bit invasive but if you have preschool or grade school kids, I think it’s still right to monitor their online activity at their age.

And speaking of contacts...

 

Contact Limits. Parents should be able to control a child's contact list and limit (or ban) anonymous contacts. I can sleep a little better knowing that the only people my child can email are her grandparents and people that I know.

 

iOS8 problems with iPad2 and iPhone 4s. We’re not rich. And I know most parents wouldn’t really buy their kids the latest iPad or iPhone model. More often than not, the kids would inherit their parents’ older devices. I know I really can’t expect Apple to make their operating systems compatible for older models but since most families with children do use older model devices, limiting the Family Sharing feature only to newer devices seems useless to me.

 

I do wish that these features are available, not only in iOS, but also in Android and Windows Mobile and any future Operating Systems that will come out. Brendan Murphy said it best when he said that “Our children have digital limbs. We cannot amputate them at the front door.” We can’t stop them, the only thing we can do is to teach and guide our children to use their digital limbs wisely. — TJD, GMA News