iOS Restrictions App Rating 17+ [1Browser: built-in browser mandates this App Store rating]

Ben

I don't believe Apple would allow us to change the app's rating based on implementing our own flavor of parental restrictions.

Ben

prime

@Ben I doubt they will, BUT it gives parents peace of mind knowing that they can block it. This is great for families who use family iCloud sharing.

Ben

Fair enough. :)

Ben

JMcClane72

Hi, I was off for some days.

@prime

I think the fact a kid can go on the browser and have at it with everything might be an issue with some parents. I can actually lock access to Safari on my daughters phone with a PIN, but if she has 1Password, she has access to a web browser again.

That's exactly the point.

@Ben
The critical thing is the integrated browser of 1Password, and for this reason the age rating of 17+ in the app store is absolutely justified.
I will not let my children install an app that comes with a browser that will leverage the parental restrictions I have set for Safari in iOS.
What do you think, how long will it take until children recognize the possibilities?

Other iOS developers have shown that it is possible to provide a integrated browser that respects the parental restrictions, but this is a fact you just ignore. Apple has APIs for this and if integrated, 1Password will get a 4+ age rating.

But if you do not want to take the effort and make your browser act in this way, than 1Password is not the appropriate app for our family.

Ben

Hi @JMcClane72,

We'd very much like to find a workable compromise here, and if we can we'll certainly consider implementing it.

Ben

crankopotamus

We bought Circle with Disney and subscribed to Circle Go for my son's phone. He had already managed to circumvent the iOS parental restrictions; apparently the Google Classroom app contains a full browser that ignores parental controls. Funny, Google Classroom is rated 4+.

I look forward to seeing how 1Password's browser plays with Circle.

Ben

I’d be interested to hear, @crankopotamus. Please let us know what you find out.

Ben

prime

I wanted to check this google classroom app out, and I don’t see a web browser in it. There are settings asking which one you want to use, so if there is a link to a web page, it’s going to use a web browser you have selected. Am I missing something?

AGAlumB

@prime: Hmm. Is "Safari" maybe not opening the separate Safari app, but just a webview within the app there? That's how Airmail works at least.

prime

@brenty I have the same screen options in my Outlook app, I turned on the restrictions for safari, and it gave me an error when I tried to opened something.

AGAlumB

Hmm. Not sure then. Maybe @crankopotamus can clarify how they have this setup.

crankopotamus

According to my son: Google Classroom > hamburger menu > Help > hamburger menu > little 3x3 launcher grid > YouTube gets you to, well, YouTube, even if you don't have the YouTube app installed. We are able to replicate this as of today.

Apparently they fixed the larger security hole; launching Search instead of YouTube wants to call Safari. With Safari disabled in Restrictions, nothing happens. He says it worked as of August 2017 (he was able to search for whatever website he wanted, and navigate to it from the search results) but we cannot replicate it today. Sorry for the wild goose chase.

AGAlumB

No problem! Thanks for the update. That makes sense. It sounds like it may have just been an oversight they can address. Cheers! :)

crankopotamus

So obviously there's plenty of age-inappropriate content on YouTube. However, this pseudo-YouTube within Google Classroom behaves like a browser. So if you find a video with a link in the description or comments, you can get to that link and navigate within the site normally.

AGAlumB

Agreed 100%. YouTube also has a lot of great educational content, but I believe there's a way to limit the user to that via Google Account/Apps/Gsuite settings. But I suppose that could be bypassed easily enough by signing out of the account... :(

prime

@brenty you can restrict YouTube. I did this for my daughter for years, and she could change anything due to she didn’t have the password to that account she was using.

AGAlumB

@prime: I'm admittedly not up on all of this, but couldn't she just access any YouTube content just by signing out of the restricted account? I'm probably missing something.

prime

@brenty the adult content (anything over 18) requires you to be logged in to see. It’s not perfect, but I used the bookmarks, saving videos, and other stuff as a selling point to keep my daughter logged in.

AGAlumB

Ahh okay. That makes sense. I didn't realize there was "adult content" on YouTube (apart from gross/annoying stuff I tend to avoid anyway). Thanks for educating me! :scream:

prime

@brenty not nudity (not that I know of), but swearing, certain artists videos that people on 18 years old can watch, violent videos, and stuff like that.

AGAlumB

Ah, duh. I'm glad to hear that they have some things in place to filter that. Maybe I should turn that on myself. :lol:

crankopotamus

Finally got around to testing this. I installed Circle Go on my son's iPhone. Circle Go is a mobile device management policy that forces the phone to connect to Circle's VPN so it can filter all traffic. He can remove the MDM policy, but I get an alert if he does, and we've discussed the consequences of that. With the Explicit Content filter set to Not Allowed, I attempted to navigate to a porn site using Safari. Circle redirected me to filter.meetcircle.com which said "Looks like you've been filtered!"

Using the 1Password browser, I attempted to navigate to the same site. Instead of the filter page, I get an error: "Failed to Load Page. The certificate for this server is invalid."

I am satisfied that Circle and Circle Go does not care what browser you use—it just works, at the network level.

I am still not thrilled that the 1Password app is rated 17+, because it means I need to lift the age restriction from his iPhone and approve each app request separately. But Circle will let him use 1Password without giving him access to inappropriate content.

darrenNZ

There are all sorts of arbitrary restrictions imposed upon developers by Apple @crankopotamus:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#kids-category

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/parental-gates/

AGAlumB

I am still not thrilled that the 1Password app is rated 17+, because it means I need to lift the age restriction from his iPhone and approve each app request separately. But Circle will let him use 1Password without giving him access to inappropriate content.

@crankopotamus: I hear you. We're not thrilled about the rating either. There is an obvious way to get a lower rating, but we're not prepared to remove 1Browser completely at this time to make that happen. I myself would miss it. :blush:

@darrenNZ: I'm glad that Apple cares about this stuff, and actively enforces it, even if that impacts us negatively, as the App Store is a pretty safe place for kids as a result. It isn't perfect, but the alternative is an App Store virtually indistinguishable from the whole of the internet...and even I don't want to deal with that half the time. :sweat:

crankopotamus

I'm sure it would be a lot of work to fork the build, and have one app for adults and another (lobotomized) one for kids?

I guess my bottom line is I found something that works. With all of Apple's parental controls, my son still found a way to access the web (and blow up our data usage by watching hours of videos). Circle works at the network level so it's well worth the money to me. The approve-each-app workaround is not really that cumbersome and probably something I should be doing anyway.

Ben

Thanks for the update @crankopotamus. Glad to hear you’ve found a solution that works for you.

Ben

fishdry

I take there there is still no solution to this? My personal preference would be to split out the browser but then I've never understood the need for in-app browsers.

My son's iPad is 9+ restricted and he's having to login to Pokemon Go very frequently - so I turn to 1Password, upgrade my personal account to a family account, and then find the 17+ rating(!).

I also find that although the my.1password.com website looks fine in Safari on the iPad (mini 4), you can't actually copy the passwords out of it despite there being a Copy button.

Ben

I take there there is still no solution to this? My personal preference would be to split out the browser but then I've never understood the need for in-app browsers.

In general, me either, and personally I much prefer to use Safari. The trouble with changing this is that there are a portion of customers who use the “Go & Fill” feature that 1Browser affords. They don’t launch Safari to do their web browsing... they launch 1Password. From there they find the site they want to visit via its Login item and tap on the URL, which 1Password takes them to in 1Browser and then fills in their credentials. This was all created before having an extension in Safari on iOS was possible, and so this was the only way to fill. Customers have built their workflows around that, and in many cases when I’ve suggested that these folks use Safari the response they often give is “but then how will I get to my websites? I don’t have all of those URLs memorized.” I’m personally an auto-complete guy. I don’t use bookmarks or rely on the website field in 1Password Login items, but for whatever reason not everyone sees things my way. ;)

I also find that although the my.1password.com website looks fine in Safari on the iPad (mini 4), you can't actually copy the passwords out of it despite there being a Copy button.

You can, but you have to select the password using the on-screen drag tool and then hit copy:

Not super convenient, I realize. We have an issue filed with development to see if there is a way to improve this.

Ben

ref: b5/b5#2905

Inner

Is there not any way to read what the Restriction policy age is set to, and based on that, restrict the feature in the App? e.g. if it's 17+, all enabled, but if less than that, disable the 1Browser? That way you comply with their policies and make it easy for everyone with younger family members to be able to use the software?

Ben

@Inner

There is no mechanism available to do that unfortunately. The app itself has to be rated. If we rate it 17+ we can include 1Browser. If we rate it as anything lower we cannot.

Ben