kids – Tutor Dasher

With December’s release of iOS 18.2, it’s fair to say that Apple Intelligence is now in full swing — if you own a compatible device, that is. However, the good news is that while Apple will prompt you to turn everything on after the update, you don’t have to leave it that way.If you don’t want to use Apple Intelligence at all, the master toggle switch is just a short way away in the Settings app under Apple Intelligence & Siri. Your iPhone may get a bit naggy the first time you turn it off, with popups telling you that Apple Intelligence is available and encouraging you to try it again, but you can dismiss those and ignore them. However, that switch is an all-or-nothing affair. Plus, it’s fine for your own device, but what if you want to disable Apple Intelligence for your kids — and prevent them from turning it back on? Well, the good news is there are ways to do that, thanks to Apple’s Screen Time controls.Screen Time was introduced in iOS 12, and while most parents use this to monitor and control their kids’ device usage, it’s also possible to use these settings to help manage your own iPhone habits or selectively turn off features you don’t want to use. The Screen Time feature lets you monitor and limit app and website activity to tell how much time you or your offspring have spent in specific apps or websites and set limits as needed. There are also settings here for Screen Distance, added in iOS 17 as a way to protect your eyes, Communication Limits to determine who your kids can call or message (in Apple’s built-in apps like Phone, Messages, and FaceTime), and the Communication Safety feature from iOS 15.2 to protect your kids against unsolicited nudes and other explicit photos.However, Screen Time can also be used to set a broad range of content and privacy restrictions, locking down features on your iPhone (or iPad or Mac), or any devices that are part of your iCloud Family Sharing group. You can determine whether kids can install or delete apps or make in-app purchases and set ratings on the maturity levels of content that can be downloaded from the App Store, iTunes Store, Apple Books Store, or viewed in Apple’s TV app or Apple Music. You can even disable apps and features like Mail, Safari, AirDrop, the Camera app, and more.To this mixture of settings, iOS 18.2 has also added a new section for Intelligence & Siri that pertains to Apple Intelligence. This expands on the Siri controls, which previously only let you disable Siri & Dictation and determine whether explicit language and web searches via Siri were allowed. Three new settings here will let you turn off specific Apple Intelligence features. Here’s how to find them. Open the Settings app on your iPhone. Scroll down and choose Screen Time. Choose Content & Privacy Restrictions from the next screen to adjust these settings for yourself, or scroll down and choose one of your family members first and select the same option from there to adjust these settings for someone else. Select Intelligence & Siri. From here, you can choose to allow or disallow the following Apple Intelligence features: Image Creation: This affects Image Playground, Genmoji, and the Image Wand. Apple recommends these features be disabled for children under 12 years of age, but it leaves that up to the parent. Writing Tools: This determines whether the system-wide Writing Tools are available in apps like Mail, Notes, Pages, or anywhere else that they can be called up. This also affects AI-generated suggested replies in Messages, although the standard predictive replies will still be available. ChatGPT Extension: This is already disabled to kids under age 13, but you can toggle it off for older kids from here. You can also turn it off for yourself from here, but there’s no need to use Screen Time for this as you can turn it off manually from the main Apple Intelligence settings (by toggling “Use ChatGPT” off from Apple Intelligence & Siri > ChatGPT). Select the feature you want to change, choose Don’t Allow from the next screen and then Back in the top-left corner to return to the previous screen. Follow the same steps and select Allow to restore access. Except for Writing Tools, turning off these settings won’t automatically hide them; they’ll just prevent them from being used. For instance, disabling the ChatGPT Extension in Screen Time doesn’t hide it from Apple Intelligence & Siri, but if you go in there, all the settings will be grayed out.CommentLikewise, disabling Image Creation won’t remove the Image Playground app. It can’t be used to create new images, but the library of images that have been generated previously will still be accessible. Like most first-party apps, you can squirrel it away in a folder or delete it entirely if you don’t want to use it. However, the other Image Creation features like Genmoji and Image Wand are seamlessly integrated, which means the only way to disable those without turning off Apple Intelligence entirely is to use the Screen Time controls.In addition to restricting your kids’ use of Apple Intelligence features, this is a handy way to turn off specific aspects of Apple Intelligence you don’t want to be bothered by. For instance, you might like the Writing Tools but find that Genmoji gets in the way (or vice-versa).

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