Apple’s latest parental controls update causes problems for users

In September 2026, Apple launched its revamped Screen Time features with the release of iOS 27. The company first showed off the new feature at WWDC 2026 as part of a campaign to prove that the iPhone is the best phone for your kids, and the update is supposed to make it easier to track what kids do on their devices by introducing new ways to manage the apps and websites they use and the time they spend there. dedicate.

Apple’s new Screen Time settings come with a handful of new tools that parents might find useful, including Time Allowances, which lets you limit the amount of time your kids can spend in app categories like social media, entertainment, and games on a daily basis. You can also set up schedules that keep school apps available during school hours and save things like games and social media for afternoons and weekends. Plus, the new Ask to Browse feature means your child will have to ask you before they can open a new website in Safari.

While this probably all sounds exciting, especially considering the control this gives parents everywhere, the update hasn’t gone as smoothly as many might have hoped. Even weeks after the release, some families still have not been able to undergo the new checks.

One of the biggest issues people seem to have with the new Screen Time features is that they require you to update all the devices in your Family Sharing group to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, or visionOS 27 before the new parental controls will work. So if someone in your family hasn’t updated their MacBook or Apple Watch, you might be stuck on old orders until they do. This has been a problem for at least one parent, who is still waiting for her college-aged son to update his MacBook so he can use the new Screen Time features on his daughter’s iPhone.

Things become more complicated if your children also use older devices. There are five popular iPad models that will not receive the iPadOS 27 update. Although they won’t benefit from the new controls, they will still be able to use Screen Time and Family Sharing settings from version 26 of the operating system or earlier.

Unfortunately, these older devices can still get in the way. A user posted on a forum that even after deleting old devices he no longer used, he still couldn’t use the new features because his Apple Watch SE was not among the devices getting the latest update. Another user responded that he had experienced the same problem with an Apple Watch Series 6 and worked around it by removing the watch from that Apple ID’s device list, turning it off, switching to the new Screen Time, and then signing in again. Luckily, it looks like it worked for the original poster as well, but it’s an extra step for users to take.

While we had an overall positive experience with iOS 27, the new Screen Time didn’t always work as it was supposed to, even for families who successfully migrated. One user noted online that after migrating to the new system, their child’s iPad ignored all changes made in settings and blocked all apps, even those he had allowed. They tried to start from scratch, but the applications got stuck and had to be re-approved one by one.

Time limits also seem to cause some issues, with one user saying that Screen Time sometimes blocks an app after just five minutes, even though their child is supposed to spend an hour on it. They also said usage reports were inconsistent depending on which device they were checking them on.

Fortunately, Apple has acknowledged the problems and is working on a solution (via The Verge). Unfortunately, the iOS 27.0.1 update released by Apple on September 28, 2026 does not appear to list any fixes for Screen Time. If you can’t update all of your family’s devices, Apple says you can at least continue using the previous version of Screen Time and Parental Controls. You can also try changing the settings directly on your child’s device.