I\u2019m irrationally excited about a new feature coming to Apple\u2019s Screen Time, the company\u2019s gentler term for parental controls. When my kid wants that extra 15 minutes on her favorite app, her plaintive request will come through iMessage as well as a pop-up notification on my Apple devices. <\/p>\n

Why is this exciting? Well, it\u2019s a small thing, but if you miss that Screen Time notification, which is currently the only alert you get, you have to dive into the Settings app to manually address the request. This is fiddly and time-consuming, especially when you\u2019re in the middle of making dinner, as it involves passcodes and multiple taps. With the request sitting handily in my Messages app with a dropdown menu that presumably will give me the same four options \u2014 approve for 15 minutes; an hour; all day; or, my favorite, don\u2019t approve \u2014 I can handle the demand on my time rather than hers.<\/p>\n