The iPhone or iPad is an expensive piece of tech kit, but aside from that it is a gateway for you to spend as much money as you want on movies, books, TV, apps, games, and a whole lot more. Couple your iPhone or iPad with your kids and there is a recipe there for disaster and just a touch of financial ruin. You see, your children (and indeed mine) do not know that clicking purchase now on an app means that some actual real physical transaction has taken place and made you poorer.
Those pesky kids, they always find away don't they? Just ask the countless alarmed parents who have had their accounts rinsed for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars by unwitting kids. Aside from monetary issues, the iPhone and iPad (like other mobile devices) are paths to the wonderful internet, a source of great information but where most adults know things can get pretty murky within seconds.
It is easy for parents to just blame the devices in question, but there are a slew of parental controls on the iPhone and iPad that can stop your child in-app purchasing or seeing that thing online that dad might enjoy, but mum probably wouldn't. In this extensive guide we will show you how to completely childproof your i device across the board. Today we will be focusing on Safari, Apple's web browser for the iPad and iPhone.
Safari, Camera, FaceTime, Siri, AirDrop, CarPlay
While your kid messing around with Siri may seem harmless enough, the wrong sentence spoken could get the personal assistant running off to all corners of the web, possibly revealing something not for a child's eyes. It is a similar story with Safari, Apple's in-built iPad and iPhone browser. To disable these and the FaceTime, Camera, AirDrop, and CarPlay features you can head to:
Settings-General-Restrictions-Enable Restrictions
This will switch on the ability to manage restrictions across these features and you can password the restrictions menu so only you can access this part of the device. Switch off any apps or services that you do not wish your child to have access to. These services can be switched on and off as many times as you want, while you can pick and choose which ones to restrict and which ones not to.
More in-depth with Safari
Turning off Safari altogether may seem a bit too extreme, especially if that child oriented website your kid visits under your supervision keeps them occupied and out of trouble. Instead, much like a traditional desktop browser, you can blacklist certain content and websites within Safari.
Settings-General-Enable Restrictions-Allowed Content-Websites-Limit Adult Content
This will now automatically block any website either willingly flagged as adult content or deemed by Safari or your search engine of choice as such. Of course, this being the internet, not every nasty website is covered, but you can get specific by adding a website by typing a specific URL and selecting Never Allow.
Alternatively, if you know the specific websites you will always visit, you can block every single piece of web content and whitelist the sites you do visit.
Settings-General-Enable Restrictions-Allowed Content-Specific Websites Only
Aside from Apple's predetermined websites, all internet content will be blocked and you can type in desired URL's to whitelist for viewing.
In the next part of this series we will be focusing on apps and avoiding in-app purchases.
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