The latest change in the iOS 16 update is the fact that the Screen Time Requests on your iPhone will now come via Message, and not everyone seems to be liking this change. Using Screen Time, you could manage and put a tab on the total amount of time your kids spend on apps, websites, and more. If the time designated by you expires, then your child could request more screen time from you. You will get notified of the same and you could easily grant or deny that request.
iPhone Screen Time Requests will now come as Message
However, with the latest update, this has undergone a change that literally no one asked for. All the requests for time extensions from your children will now come directly to the iMessage. And there are quite a few issues with that. For starters, it will mess up the chat screen and make it all the more cluttered. Moreover, there is no single option to delete all these requests at once, you will have to manually do so, which calls for unnecessary and additional time and effort.
Moreover, this implementation in itself is currently broken, with parents unable to grant the request in just one go as the approval mechanism isn’t working along the expected lines. On top of that, most of these requests are stuck on the forever-loading loop. To make matter worse, children keep on spamming their parents with requests thinking that they might not have received them yet. All in all, it’s totally messy out there!
Its implementation could have been much better
Look, we don’t have much issues with requests coming to iMessage but rather the problem is the way this functionality has been implemented. It would have been much better if these requests would have been deleted right after we had granted or revoked them, instead of making a permanent abode on our chat screen.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and as is the case with all other Apple changes we don’t have any say in this either. What are your views about this iOS 16 change wherein the screen time requests are now coming in the Message on your iPhone? Do share your valuable opinions with us in the comments section below.
Jon
As of the afternoon of Sunday September 17 (In the USA) this annoying feature is back :pulls out hair:
At some point in the past 6 months Apple had reverted to the original screen time notifications which always worked as expected and didn’t clog up Messages with your kids.
I was delighted when this happened because I could once again approve screen time requests on my Apple Watch (Series 7).
Now it’s back to the same issue from iOS 16, now on the dawn of iOS 17 that this blunder is back.
Devon
This is killing me. I can’t approve it on my watch anymore. I can’t even approve it on my laptop because I have to wait 27 years for system settings to load. So now every single time, I have to get out my phone and hope it gives me the approval option instead of the system settings option. Couldn’t be worse.
Greg
Seriously so annoying that it clutters the chat thread. It also duplicates sometimes it seems. The old way was great in my opinion.
Amanda Jones
I HATE this new change, and wish we as parents at least had the option to keep it as it was or switch to the new message delivery. PLEASE LET US CHOOSE, APPLE!!