A Parents Guide to Making an iPod Touch / iPhone Kid Friendly

Last Updated: 1/8/11

Here are my suggestions for making your iPod / iPhone more kid friendly

1. Turn on Parental restrictions (secured by a 4 digit passcode, pick a good one your child won't guess) to limit what your child can do on their iPod. Mainly for limiting, movies, apps, and music to their age range. (there are a lot of "adult" apps): Here are some instructions:

http://knol.google.com/k/how-to-setup-parental-controls-on-iphone-ipod-touch-os-3-0-edition#

You can set things to PG only or PG-13 only, etc.....

2. Let your child know that you expect them to use their iPod appropriately, then borrow their iPod from them about once a month (without advanced notice) and "inspect" it.

3. Disable Safari (the web browser) and install this child friendly browser with parental controls for $5:

http://www.mobicip.com/online_safety/ipod_touch

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299153586&mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D6

You can also sign-up for a premium account with mobicip.com and get greater control plus activity reports for only $10 a year.

I think 1 and 2 are important, because they are easy to do and are free. 3 requires a little more effort, because you have to spend $5 and then setup an account with that company and configure it.

You should be aware that disabling safari to block web browsing is not a perfect solution. If you don't restrict installation of new apps, then a savvy person could install an alternate web browsers like Opera or SkyFire and get to the web. However, if you block the ability to install apps, then new games can not be installed either. This is why suggestion 2 is so important. You can not rely 100% on anything, sometimes you just have to do check on things your self.

Keywords: ipod touch, parental controls, restrictions, kid friendly, parents guide, moive ratings, app