Apple Helps You Navigate Parenting in the Digital Age! #iPhoneXr @Apple #Apple

We all upgraded to the iPhone Xr in late December and we couldn’t be happier. Tons of extra features, my favorite being the facial recognition. And of course I balked at that new fangled idea, and then quickly fell in love with it since I forget passwords all the time!

And Apple is the leader in the field, constantly working on ways to help families navigate the digital world, and use their phones productively. At a recent event, this senior citizen to be (me) even started coding! I thought I needed to go back to colege for that! I am also a fan of parental controls, as the parent of a teenager, I say you can never have enough of those!

• Screen Time is great for everyone to better understand and manage their device usage, but can be especially helpful for kids and families. 
• Screen Time works with Family Sharing and is quick and easy to set up. Parents can configure Screen Time settings remotely for their child within the same Family Sharing group or locally on a child’s device.
• Detailed daily and weekly Activity Reports show the total time a person spends in each app they use, their usage across categories of apps, how many notifications they receive and how often they pick up their device.
• Parents can access their child’s Activity Report right from their own iOS devices to understand where their child spends their time and manage and set App Limits for them.
• Screen Time also gives parents the ability to schedule a block of time to limit when their child’s iOS device can’t be used, such as at bedtime. 
  • During Downtime notifications from apps won’t be displayed, and a badge will appear on apps to indicate they are not allowed to be used. Parents can choose specific apps like Phone or Books that will always be available, even during downtime or after a limit is spent.
• Screen Time is account-based and works across all of a child’s iOS devices, so settings, reports and allowances are based on their total usage. 

• Family Sharing makes it easy for up to six people in your family to share iTunes, Apple Books, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family subscription, and an iCloud storage plan, without sharing accounts. Family Sharing also lets you share photos, a family calendar, and more to help keep everyone connected.

• Everyone Can Code is a comprehensive program and curriculum to help students from kindergarten to college and beyond learn coding to solve problems and prepare them for the workforce. With teacher guides and lessons, students learn the basics on iPad with Swift Playgrounds. 

• Designed to help unleash kids’ creativity, Everyone Can Create is a fun, free, one-of-a-kind program for teachers that helps students develop and communicate ideas through drawing, music, video and photos on iPad. The curriculum was developed in collaboration with educators and artists to allow teachers to easily incorporate creativity into their existing lesson plans in any subject, including literature, math, science, history, humanities and coding.
• The project guides that make up the curriculum aren’t just for students and teachers. They were developed with the classroom in mind, but intended for anyone, young or old, who wants to get started using apps such as GarageBand or iMovie on iPad to  be more creative. 
• Each chapter of the project guides includes a few short step-by-step activities that introduce essential skills so you can complete creative projects — whether that’s writing a song, drawing a landscape or making a short video. Many of the projects are collaborative, allowing parents and children to work together. 
  • The Action Photography chapter in the Photos guide includes great tips for using Burst mode and Live Photo effects to capture action with your iOS device. 
  • The Music guide includes videos from Justin Timberlake, explaining his approach to songwriting and giving you a chance to learn from a pro. 

• With iPad and the over 200,000 educational apps now available on the App Store, kids can explore topics from music to chemistry to coding to history.
• The App Store’s collections of Apps for Every Grade takes the mystery out of choosing the best apps for every age and stage.

• AR Apps
  • Plantale is a learning app that takes you on a journey of a plant’s life. You can observe the growth stages of plant from a simple seed, discover how the plant reproduces to form this seed and learn all about the anatomy and morphology of all plant parts with AR. 
  • Wonderscope is an iOS app for kids that uses augmented reality to transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary stories. Through your Wonderscope, you can see the story take place all around you, whether you open the app in your room or outdoors. Read your lines aloud to engage with and talk to characters, and help them solve problems along the way. 
  • JigSpace is the platform to explore and share interactive, 3D knowledge for anything. When you ask “How does that work?” the answer is right in front of you, in 3D. Dive through dozens of Jigs, learn at your own pace, and satisfy your curiosity.
• GarageBand for iOS makes it incredibly simple to play, record, and share your music, no matter where you are. Tap into a wide range of instruments from around the world. And now with the Sound Library, you can choose and download more free instrument and loop packs when new sounds are released, to help you easily craft songs in your favorite styles.
• Swift Playgrounds is a revolutionary app and one-of-a-kind learning experience for iPad that makes it fun to learn and experiment with code by solving interactive puzzles in the guided “Learn to Code” lessons to master the basics of coding, while additional challenges let you explore code and create programs that are engaging and unique. Swift Playgrounds requires no coding knowledge, so it’s perfect for students just starting out, from twelve to one-hundred-and-twelve. 

The AR on this phone is remarkable! I was playing around watching the internal workings of the moon lander as if it were on the table in front of me!