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| The new parental controls in iOS 27 only take effect once parents set them up after the update. |
Apple’s iOS 27 update, released September 14, is one of the biggest overhauls of parental controls in years. It changes how Safari browsing, app time, contacts and content restrictions work across iPhone, iPad and Mac. But there is a catch: updating a child’s device is not enough. The new protections need a separate setup step, and only some of them are enabled by default.
First, every device in the family has to be updated
Apple says the Screen Time update requires every device in a Family Sharing group to run iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27 or visionOS 27. That includes the family iPad in the living room and a parent’s Apple Watch. After one device is updated, Settings > Family shows which devices still need the update. Devices that cannot run version 27 stay on the older iOS 26 Screen Time settings. Apple explains the rollout in its newsroom announcement.
Even after all devices are updated, the new controls don’t appear by themselves. Parents need to go through a short setup for each child, either transferring old settings or creating new ones. Apple’s Ask to Browse support page states directly that parents must update their parental controls before the feature will work. The child safety setup guide walks through the process.
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| Apple switches on more protection for children under 13 than for 13- to 17-year-olds. Time Allowances and the passcode are always up to parents. |
For children with their own Child Account, some protections are automatic. Ask to Browse is on by default for children under 13. Limit Adult Websites is on by default for children under 18. Age-based content restrictions and Communication Safety—which helps prevent children from viewing or sharing nude images in Messages, AirDrop and FaceTime—are also on for everyone under 18. For children up to 13, contact management is enabled too, so parents must approve every new person their child wants to message or call.
There is a wrinkle: Apple notes that age definitions vary by country or region. In Germany, for example, any Apple Account under 16 is treated as a Child Account, while the help pages describe defaults around age 13. Apple does not spell out which defaults apply to 13- to 15-year-olds in those countries, so parents should check every item during setup. More detail is in Apple’s Child Safety guide.
From 13, most choices are up to parents
Ask to Browse only switches on automatically for the youngest children. From 13, the adult content filter is the only web restriction left on by default. Parents who want to approve every new website for an older child must change this manually. The path is Settings > Family > child’s name > Apps & Websites > Restrictions. Under Filtering in the Websites section, Approved Websites Only is the stricter option. Apple says Ask to Browse works in Safari and other supported browser apps, but it does not list which browsers those are. The Screen Time restrictions guide has the steps.
Contacts follow the same pattern. Contact management is on by default up to 13 and can be turned on for older children. In the years when many kids get their first phone and group chats start to matter, the setting stays off unless a parent enables it.
Time Allowances, schedules and the passcode
What used to be Downtime is now part of the child’s daily schedule. Parents can set separate hours for weekdays and weekends; outside those hours, most apps and notifications are paused. A new option pauses entertainment, games and social media during school hours while leaving everything else available.
App Limits are now called Time Allowances and are built around three categories: Entertainment, Games and Social Media, though parents can add more. Parents set a total for all three and can adjust each category. While moving the slider, the iPhone shows age-based guidance that Apple developed with clinical and child development experts, but the final limit is still up to the parents. When a child runs out of time, they can ask for more.
The last step is a four-digit Screen Time passcode. Apple’s wording is a passcode “that your child shouldn’t be able to guess.” It is required for every change to the parental controls, so it protects everything set up before it. A child’s birth year is a poor choice. Apple’s passcode support page explains why it matters.
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| The new controls only start once every device in the family is updated and parents run the setup for each child. |
Android 17 has its own pitfalls
Android parents are not off the hook either. Since Android 17, parents can set parental controls directly on the device without Family Link. They create a parental controls PIN with at least four digits and can then set a daily limit, downtime, app limits, blocked apps and web content filters. According to Google, these controls cannot be turned on if the device has multiple profiles, such as a work profile or a private space. The recovery account matters too: without one, a forgotten PIN means resetting the device to factory settings. Google’s Android 17 parental controls page has the details.
Family Link remains the better option for managing several children and devices from a parent’s phone. Google says children under 18 need a parent’s consent to stop supervision, and both sides are notified when it ends. The Family Link support page explains how supervision works.
The bottom line
Apple has built better parental tools with iOS 27, but most of them only work once parents set them up after the update and choose them for children aged 13 and older. It takes one pass per child. Protections that ship switched off are a pattern, as the new bank scam defense in iOS 27 showed only days earlier. For busy families, the real message is simple: update every device, then open Settings and finish the setup. The protections are there—but they will not configure themselves.
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| On-device parental controls in Android 17 cover a single phone, while Family Link manages several children and devices in one place. |