Apple previews new child safety features

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 8, 2026--

Apple® today previewed a new suite of powerful, intuitive, and easy-to-use features designed to allow parents to more easily manage the content their children can see, who they can communicate with, and when they have access to apps. With software updates this fall, parents will be able to access new child safety features, including a simpler setup experience with a recommended set of essential apps, Ask to Browse, Time Allowances, and a redesigned Screen Time. These updates enhance Apple’s already industry-leading parental controls and underscore its commitment to building a safe and trusted platform for kids.

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“At Apple, our mission has always been to create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives, while helping keep them safe,” said Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health and Fitness. “Our approach to helping families create safer digital experiences is grounded in the belief that every child is unique. That’s why we build simple and intuitive tools, based on expert guidance, to let parents tailor their kids’ digital journey. Today, we’re introducing major updates to help families thoughtfully establish age-based protections and develop healthy digital habits.”

Getting Kids Started with a Child Account

The first and most important step parents can take to create age-appropriate experiences for their child is to set up a child account. It enables safeguards across the system, tailored to the child’s age, like limiting adult websites, only allowing age-appropriate media, and setting age-based restrictions in the App Store®. Parents are guided through creating a child account when setting up a new device for their child. A child account is required for children under 13 1 and available for children up to 18.

What Content Kids Can See

Once a child account is created, parents can help their kids get a focused start by choosing exactly which apps they can access on their device. Parents have the option to start with just a few essential apps, a curated set, or choose just the apps they feel are appropriate for their child. Parents can then gradually add more apps over time, while staying in control at every step.

Parents have been able to easily expand access to additional apps over time with Ask to Buy, which enables parents to require that their child get their approval before downloading an app from the App Store — whether free or paid — or making an in-app purchase. With the new Ask to Browse, parents can also require that kids ask permission to access a new website in Safari®. This feature works seamlessly across iPhone®, iPad®, and Mac®.

Who Kids Can Communicate With

From the start, parents are able to manage who their children can connect with over Messages, FaceTime®, and Phone. As kids look to communicate with new contacts, parents can require their kids to ask for approval before connecting with anyone new.

Communication Safety already blurs nudity when detected in Messages and FaceTime calls, and is turned on by default for users under 18, and now it will also intervene to block gore or violent content when detected in shared images or videos.

When Kids Can Access Apps

Time Allowances give parents more flexible ways to manage the time their kids spend in apps across categories, including Entertainment, Games, and Social Media. When setting Time Allowances, parents are provided with guidance, based on expert research, that’s tailored to a child’s age. This serves as a helpful starting point for parents, who can easily adjust these settings based on what they determine is best for their child.

Parents can also set daily Schedules to manage which apps their children have access to at different times of the day and across the week. This helps parents ensure their kids can stay focused when it matters, like during school.

How Parents Can Guide Their Kids’ Digital Journey

Screen Time is now redesigned and gives parents an at-a-glance view of their kids’ average device usage and most used apps. Parents can easily make adjustments to their kids’ access to apps and the web in the moment, with just a tap. For example, to help protect important family moments, parents can quickly limit access during meals, outdoor play, and other times that deserve full attention. If kids need a little extra time to finish something in an app, parents can also easily extend access.

Empowering Families with Expert Guidance and Resources

For years, Apple has integrated guidance from leading clinical and child development research, as well as online safety experts, into its products and services, and continues to help advance research into children’s digital wellbeing. Apple is working with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to adapt its Family Media Plan into a guide parents can reference when using Apple products. Apple also continues to collaborate with researchers to understand the impact of technology on children’s wellbeing, and is committed to advancing the science in this area.

A Dedicated Website for Parents

To help parents stay informed and learn more, Apple has launched a dedicated website that features the latest tools, helpful resources, and answers to common questions — like how to get started.

Parents can also learn more online about existing trusted tools to help them protect their children, including:

Supporting Developers in Creating Age-Appropriate App Experiences

While Apple’s powerful controls help parents manage which apps their child can access and when, developers also play an important role in making sure kids are getting age-based experiences inside apps.

To help developers get started, Apple offers a suite of tools that can help protect kids from seeing inappropriate content like violence or nudity and help ensure parents approve any new in-app contacts, via SensitiveContentAnalysis and PermissionKit, respectively. Developers can also integrate the Declared Age Range API, which allows them to request a child’s age range and tailor their app experience accordingly. This is done in a privacy-protective way, without sharing a child’s birthday.

Availability

New features will be available after installing the Screen Time update in iOS 27, iPadOS® 27, and macOS® 27. Features are subject to change. For more information about availability, visit apple.com.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Footnotes

1. The minimum age for account creation may vary across countries and regions. Learn more at support.apple.com/en-us/102617.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple Newsroom ( www.apple.com/newsroom ), or email Apple’s Media Helpline at media.help@apple.com.

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Apple today previewed a new suite of powerful, intuitive, and easy-to-use tools that are designed to help parents create safer digital experiences for their kids.

Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a resurgent pest that could devastate the nation's cattle industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds of animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state. The animal's travel history is being investigated.

The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.

Scientists expect new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn't mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.

“When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”

Screwworm gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA.

The agency and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an outbreak since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. The USDA has been dropping sterile flies in south Texas since February, and is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a $750 million fly factory in Texas.

So far, screwworm's reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the United States. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit. There are also a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.

Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F (25 C), making them more of a summer problem up north.

Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.

The goal is to have enough sterile flies to stop the pests from returning in 2027 after the winter kills off most of them, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a news conference at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.

Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize only male flies to make the program even more effective.

Texas officials encouraged ranchers to keep a close eye on their herds and local wildlife. There's now a 24-hour screwworm hotline and a website and map for reported cases.

“This is a highly treatable condition if you act on it immediately,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.

However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who lost the recent Republican primary to a candidate backed by Abbott — said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry.

Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if the USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven effective and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.

“What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview.

This story has been updated to reflect that the USDA revised the dog screwworm case to New Mexico, not Texas as the agency initially reported, and to correct the spelling of Kerrville.

Associated Press writer Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, center, holds a news conference with ranchers, researchers and officials at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A ranchers arrivse for a news conference with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

FILE - A test container of dyed fly pupae are displayed at a Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility to combat the northward spread of NWS and protect American livestock, in Edinburg, Texas, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - An adult New World screwworm fly sits in this undated photo. (Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP)