Julie Jargon has a piece for The Wall Street Journal (Apple News link) about the state of Apple’s Screen Time software:
The company’s cloud-based Family Sharing system is designed in part for parents to remotely schedule off-limits time and restrict apps and adult content on their children’s iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch models. Trouble is, parents are finding that when they use their iPhones to set restrictions on their kids’ devices, the changes don’t stick.
“We are aware that some users may be experiencing an issue where Screen Time settings are unexpectedly reset,” an Apple spokeswoman said. “We take these reports very seriously and we have been, and will continue, making updates to improve the situation.”
I’ve run into this a couple of times on my kids’ devices and thought I was losing my mind, and it’s nothing new:
Apple previously acknowledged the bug, calling it “an issue where Screen Time settings may reset or not sync across all devices.” However, the company had reported the issue fixed with iOS 16.5, which came out in May. In our testing the bug persists, even with the new public beta of iOS 17.
I don’t understand how this has made it past Apple’s QA process on more than one occasion.