Apple has reversed course on its ban of parental control app OurPact, allowing the ousted software to return to the App Store in its original form and without any limitations or restrictions. The move marks an end to a months-long dispute between Apple and a variety of parental control companies affected by Apples restrictions.
The fact that Apple removed or prevented updates to many of these apps (including OurPact) raised eyebrows because it allegedly stemmed from a sudden change in policy that reclassified the apps as unsafe, due to the technology they relied on for managing kids devices. The issue was that these apps were using a suite of tools called MDM, or multi-device management, designed for management of hardware in IT and school environments. It was still allowed on the App Store in a variety of enterprise-level apps after Apples rule change, despite using the exact same technology and seemingly putting their users at the same purported risk.
Things came to a head right before Apples annual WWDC developer gathering, following a story in The New York Times that put a spotlight on the affected parental control app developers. The report noted how Apples bans seemed to coincide with its own rollout of the built-in Screen Time parental control tool in iOS 12, suggesting Apples motives involved self-interest.
In response, Apple took the unusual step of publishing a letter from Phil Schiller, its longtime worldwide marketing chief, explaining that the apps “put users privacy and security at risk,” and therefore had to be removed. A group of parental control app developers (including OurPact) then banded together to demand an API from Apple for their apps to function within iOSs new limits, if they were to be permanently prevented from using the existing MDM tools.
