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Last year, a report had explored Apple's crackdown on time spent in front of a third-party screen and parental control as a result of the implementation of Screen Time as a native feature of iOS 12 . The New York Times notes Apple's ongoing efforts to encourage users to use its third-party time tracking function.
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The report says that during the past year, Apple has "removed or restricted" at least 11 of the 17 most popular parental control and screen time apps on the App. Store. In some cases, apps have been completely removed from the App Store, while some developers have been forced to remove key features.
Following Apple's harsher stance on these parental control apps, developers of two of the most popular apps have filed a complaint with the European Union. Kidslox and Qustodio filed a complaint with the EU on Thursday, according to today's report. This follows an antitrust complaint by Kaspersky Labs in Russia last month, also focused on Screen Time under iOS 12.
Some developers say that Apple's crackdown on these apps is causing them to wonder if the company really wants users to spend less time on their phones:
"Their motivations are not really aligned to help people solve their problem," said Fred Stutzman, chief executive of Freedom, a screen application with more than 770,000 downloads before Apple deletes it in August. "Can you really believe that Apple wants people to spend less time on their phones?"
In a statement, an Apple spokeswoman told the New York Times that the company's timing of taking third-party parental control applications has nothing to do with launching its own Screen Time feature:
"We treat all apps the same way, including those that compete with our own services," said Tammy Levine, an Apple spokesperson. "Our motivation is to create a dynamic applications ecosystem offering consumers access to as many quality apps as possible." She said the schedule for Apple's removals was not tied to its first similar tools.
The full New York Times report takes a deeper look at parents' views of Screen Time versus pre-existing third-party apps. Read it here.
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