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After not having Apple devices in the house for years, one of the kids begged me for an iphone (mainly for FaceTime).

The Apple UX has gone downhill over the years. Parental controls are more confusing than Google's and you're locked out of most controls unless you buy a recent Apple device as well.

Apple's user interfaces were once the envy of the industry. What happened?!

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When my kiddo wants to install an app:

1) She brings me her phone and it wants my full AppleID and password (a very long password)
2) Once I enter it, the phone says it was unsuccessful
3) Exiting the model takes me to the main system settings (why?)
4) After a 2-3 second pause, phone says I need to input a code that they are texting to my android phone
5) I input the code
6) iPhone tells me it worked
7) My kiddo is still staring at the main system settings wondering what to do

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After all this, she wanders back to the App Store, searches for the app again, taps "Get" and it downloads without any further prompts. 🤷‍♂️

Google lets you handle all of this through an app (that runs on both platforms) as well as a website (for any kind of computer).

Sigh.

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My kiddo's move to Apple feels like she's "cut off" from me technologically. Video chatting is now difficult, we can't see each other's location, and getting my permission for things is now quite arduous.

At least we have working RCS chats. Most of the time.

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@major I really despise both and child protection settings and UI.

I found that it is best to ask permissions via notifications, so I can grant/deny on my phone/tablet. Using my password manager to not have to type the password each time.
Of course on ipadOS you need to be remember to copy your password **before** clicking on the "password required" notification. Otherwise it closes the notification...

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@johanneskastl Google has had a lot of rough edges in Family Link over the years for sure, but their latest revisions over the past year have fixed about 80% of my complaints.

I'm sure Apple's parental controls are quite good, but the catch is that you must be carrying one of their devices (and a modern one at that).

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@major it's not any better when a parent has an apple device, either. I was very happy when my kids got old enough that I could no longer deal with Apple's horrible UX of having to type my iCloud credentials in twice to approve any app install, and then hoping it would work.
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@monsieuricon Ugh, it's nice to know I'm not alone (and that there isn't a better way).

I've been away from Apple products since about 2009-2010 and the UX changes are very noticeable to me.

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