Apple's revamped Screen Time parental controls, introduced last month alongside iOS 27, are proving difficult for some families to activate, according to users with multiple devices enrolled in Apple's Family Sharing group. The new system requires that every iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and even Vision Pro in the group be updated to the relevant OS 27 before the features can be used on any single device. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, a senior reviewer at The Verge, reported that she cannot enable the new Screen Time on her 15-year-old daughter's iPhone because her 18-year-old son has not updated his MacBook Neo, which is four hours away at college.
Complicating the situation, older devices that cannot run OS 27 appear to block access for some users even though Apple's documentation states that such legacy devices should not prevent the new Screen Time from working on compatible hardware. According to the report, some users found they could only turn on the new features after removing those older gadgets from their accounts. Tuohy also encountered delays, including a Mac Mini that Apple still identified as running macOS 26 more than a week after she updated it, and a sixth-generation iPad Mini listed under her name that had to be removed several times before clearing.
Apple acknowledged the problems. Company spokesperson Katie Lowry said the update is Apple's biggest child safety release yet and is meant to give families more tools to keep children safe, adding that the company is working to improve the rollout so parents can set up quickly and is trying to resolve the delays some families are experiencing. Screen Time, Apple's parental controls offering, has drawn complaints since its 2018 debut, including settings that fail to sync reliably across devices and difficulty managing contacts and time limits remotely.
The update uses a redesigned iCloud architecture, which Apple says is why every eligible device must be on OS 27. Tuohy described a delay between updating a device and gaining access, and noted that her editor only saw the option appear after waiting and deleting legacy devices from his account, though it remains unclear whether time or the removals produced the result. She also pointed to a broader concern: hand-me-down devices are common in families, and her daughter's third-generation iPad Pro, a hand-me-down from her husband, tops out at iPadOS 26, meaning it will never run the new parental controls.
The practical effect, Tuohy wrote, is a household split between a device that supports the new features and one that does not. She expects she will have to manage the older iPad through the old Screen Time controls directly on the device rather than from her phone, since it cannot sync through the upgraded iCloud architecture, and suggested families with multiple older devices may want to stay with the existing controls for now. In the meantime, she is still trying to determine what is causing her Mac Mini to block the update while pressing her son to update his MacBook Neo.
Tuohy wrote that the system designed to protect one child now depends on the cooperation of another who is past parental controls and uninterested in the task. She said she reached out to Apple about the problems and that the company acknowledged the issues and said it is making changes to resolve them.
More gadget news from TechManNews.
