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Screen Time for supported iPhone use — the best reviews

The more I look at (remote) Screen Time the more impressed I am by the power and complexity of this project. Today, for example, I realized there is an option to include or exclude “Website Data”. I also discovered that after you’ve set an app limit time, a magic “Customize Days” option appears! I can’t “unsee” “Customize Days” now, but for weeks I didn’t notice that it suddenly appears once you set a time value.

It’s not perfect by any means. Screen Time reports don’t always update promptly.  I have a device that refuses to enroll in Screen Time. The need to change an Explorers Apple ID age to be under 18 is more than frustrating — this should be an Accessibility setting. We need Apple to offer an API that devs can build solutions around, so the burden of making this work doesn’t fall only on parents. Note least — we need better documentation!

I’ve been trying to write that documentation and I now understand why it doesn’t exist. This is really complicated. I’ve rewritten my chapter work several times, and now I’m stepping back to collect the best documentation I can find by searching on some keyword phrases:

  • Screen Time
  • Family Sharing
  • Include Website Data
  • Customize Days

As of 1/5/2019 if I ask for all of these I get one result! Relaxing the search a bit here are the best docs I’ve found (most of ‘em don’t get the difference between remote and local Screen Time controls):

And from Apple support (there’s not much in the iOS 12 User Guide):

That’s the current set. Next step is to finish my own take, then go through each of the above and add in what I’ve missed.

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Simplifying the iPhone for Explorers: Accessibility options

From a Smartphones for All book chapter on initial setup of an Explorer’s iPhone …

The iPhone Accessibility settings are largely organized for users with vision, hearing, and movement problems. These may be very important for many Explorers but that’s a topic for another book. Apple’s iPhone User Guide and especially their Support pages have good discussions of Accessibility features like the VoiceOver screen reader.

One day there may be be an Accessibility setting that would simplify the iPhone for Explorers with cognitive disabilities but for now most Accessibility settings make the iPhone more confusing to use. For example, Magnifier enables a triple click shortcut to turn the iPhone into a great magnifying glass, but it’s too easy to trigger by accident.

There are a few accessibility settings that do simplify the user interface. For most Explorers, indeed for most iPhone users, 3D Touch is a low value feature that is mostly activated by accident. I recommend disabling it in Accessibility. Shake to Undo is often activated by accident — turn that one off too. If Vibration bothers an Explorer that can also be disabled.

If an Explorer is bothered by “special effects” there’s an Accessibility setting called Reduce Motion that can help. It gets rid of annoying effects that can bother some Explorers — and me! I turn it off on my iPhone.

If an Explorer is accidentally triggering Siri with the home button there’s an option to turn that off in Accessibility Home Button. It’s generally easier to just disable Siri though.3D touch. Siri is surprisingly hard to use effectively, many iPhone users ignore her.

There are five ways to make the iPhone display easier to read for people who don’t have perfect reading vision. Yes, this is confusing! Apple will probably revise these in future.

The first way is to buy a “Plus” sized iPhone. Text and everything else is a bit larger on Plus devices. These cost more money and are too big for many situations, but if you don’t already own an iPhone this is something to consider.

The second, and best option for most users, is to enable “Display Zoom”  in the Display & Brightness. This causes few problems and is a great option for many iPhone users, including many users over age 45. It makes touch targets a bit bigger too, so it’s helpful for Explorers who miss their taps.

There are more options in Accessibility if Display Zoom doesn’t suffice. Larger Text works reasonably well as long as you don’t enable “Larger Accessibility Sizes”. Some application screen text will crowd together. 

The next options are more problematic. Larger Text with “Larger Accessibility Sizes” enables super large text — but most apps have trouble with this text size. There’s a “Zoom option” in Accessibility, not to be confused with “Display Zoom” described above, that can be used to magnify parts of the screen. It can work very well for low vision users, but it is complex to use.

See also sphone4all posts in the best you can be blog.