Apple announced a long-overdue rebuild of Screen Time on June 8, and the new features go out this fall with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27. The headline is a redesigned Screen Time experience, but the parts most parents will care about are practical: a new way to approve websites before kids visit them, daily time budgets by app category, and stricter controls on who kids can talk to.
None of this is turned on by magic. Each feature needs a decision from you, and a few require every device in your Family Sharing group to be on the new operating system before the new dashboard shows up. Here is what we think is worth paying attention to.
TL;DR
Apple is rebuilding Screen Time, adding a "Child Account" type with age-appropriate defaults, and introducing four new controls parents can actually use: Ask to Browse for Safari, Time Allowances for app categories, Schedules for time-of-day app access, and stricter Communication Safety that also covers gore and violent images. The public iOS 27 beta lands in July, the full release ships this fall.
What is actually new
Six changes are worth knowing. The first three are brand new in iOS 27; the rest improve things that already existed.
- Child Account. A separate account type for kids under 13 (optional up to 18) that ships with age-appropriate defaults and a guided setup that lets you pick the apps your child can use on day one.
- Ask to Browse. When a kid tries to visit a new website, the request shows up as a message on your phone. You approve or deny it there. New adult sites are blocked by default for under-18 accounts.
- Time Allowances. Daily time budgets for whole categories, Entertainment, Games, Social Media, plus the option to set your own. Apple suggests amounts based on age and the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance. Parents can override and customize.
- Schedules. A separate way to decide which apps are available at what times: before school, during school, after school, evening, bedtime, weekends. Different rules for weekdays and weekends, and custom rules for holidays.
- Redesigned Screen Time. A simpler at-a-glance view, weekly summaries, and one-tap actions to pause device access or open it up for a set window. Always Allowed apps and contacts stay available even when the rest is paused.
- Communication Safety, expanded. The existing nudity-detection feature in Messages now also intervenes on shared gore and violent images. It is on by default for under-18 accounts.
What to do this summer, before the upgrade
You have a few months before the public release. The new dashboard does not show up at all unless every device in your Family Sharing group is on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, or macOS 27, so a little prep now saves a frustrating afternoon later.
- Inventory your Apple IDs. Make sure every kid in your household has their own Apple ID set up as a Child account in your Family Sharing group. Shared Apple IDs cause problems on the old Screen Time and will cause more on the new one.
- Check the device list. Confirm every iPhone, iPad, and Mac the kids use is on the supported-for-27 list. Apple typically drops three to four older models each year. The Mac Mini in the back office that still runs the home printer needs to be on the list too, or the new controls will silently not apply there.
- Decide your house rules first. The setup assistant will ask, on day one, which apps your child can use and how much time each category gets. Have a rough answer ready: what hours are school, what hours are bedtime, what categories of app feel right for your kid's age. You can change any of it later, but the defaults get set during the first 10 minutes and most parents never revisit them.
What to do on day one, after the upgrade
The new install will try to walk you through it. You do not have to accept the defaults. Here is a sensible first pass for most families.
- Turn on Ask to Browse and leave it on for under-13 accounts. For teens, decide case by case. The kill switch you actually want is the one that blocks known adult sites by default for under-18s, which is on by default; verify it is still on after the upgrade.
- Set the Time Allowances for the categories that matter most. Social Media and Games are usually the ones families argue about. Start with Apple's age-based suggestion, then adjust after two weeks once you have seen the actual usage data.
- Build one Schedule that covers school hours, and another for bedtime. Resist the urge to build six schedules on day one. One solid school-hours schedule and one bedtime schedule covers 90 percent of the friction most parents run into.
What this does not solve
It is worth saying out loud, because the marketing will not. None of this helps if a kid has access to a device that is not in your Family Sharing group: a friend's phone, a school-issued iPad, a library computer. None of it helps on a Windows PC, a Chromebook, or a gaming console. None of it replaces the actual conversation you have with your kid about what is and is not okay to look at or share.
On the home network side, the picture is unchanged. Apple controls the device, the router controls the house, and most home routers do a poor job of filtering by default. If you want a second layer that covers every device in the house regardless of operating system, that is a router-level job. We have written about the home-network side of this separately.
How this fits with what we already recommend
For most of the families we work with, the right setup is layered, not single-vendor.
- On the device: the new iOS 27 controls, when available, plus the Family Media Plan the American Academy of Pediatrics publishes (Apple partnered with AAP to surface it during setup).
- On the home network: DNS-level filtering on the router, so every phone, tablet, gaming console, and smart TV in the house inherits the same baseline rules without needing an app on each one.
- In the conversation: a short, written family agreement about what is and is not okay, revisited every six months. Controls help, but they are a safety net, not a substitute.
Bottom line
Ask to Browse and Time Allowances are the two features most parents will actually use. The redesigned Screen Time is a real improvement over what shipped in iOS 16. The Communication Safety expansion is a quiet but important step. None of it is a substitute for a router-level filter and a family conversation, but on a device your kid owns, this is the strongest set of built-in controls Apple has shipped.
If you want a second set of eyes on your current family setup, that is a normal part of our free 30-minute review.