Parents the winner in Leopard, Vista showdown
Microsoft and Apple have significantly improved the parental controls of their operating systems, assuming people know how to use them. Images: Controlling kids' surfing via OS
Digital kids
Parents the winner in Leopard, Vista showdown
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: November 20, 2007 4:00 a.m. PST
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In a showdown of new parental controls in Apple's Leopard versus Microsoft's year-old Vista, there's one clear winner--the parent.
When Apple unveiled its newest operating system on October 26, the computer maker made its first major overture to parents by infusing Leopard with a slick set of child controls. New settings help parents manage a child's time online, block use of certain Web sites or applications like instant chat or iTunes, and watch over what kids do and who they communicate with when Mom and Dad aren't around.
Apple was playing catch-up to Microsoft's parental controls for Vista, which the computer giant unveiled in January. It, too, made its biggest push into the parental-control market with Vista, adding the same finely tuned features, so much so that parental advocates say Vista's parent controls are a reason to buy the software. And that's true of Apple now, too.
"The battle to one-up each other in parental controls is only going to benefit consumers," said Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis at the research firm the NPD Group. "There's really no excuse now for parents not to lock down their PCs for their children."
Parents are clearly paying more attention to technology for managing their children's computer use, especially as more kids venture online at younger ages. As one proof point, U.S. retail sales of parental control software were up 47.3 percent in the first nine months of 2007 over the same period last year, according to NPD, which tracks sales of major retailers such as Amazon.com and BestBuy. Top sellers at stores are controls from Enteractive, Microforum, and ContentWatch.
Apple and Microsoft don't have numbers on how many customers use parental controls, but analysts say the feature will easily be a selling point for Leopard and Vista this holiday season. Apple sold 2 million copies of Leopard in the first weekend it was available, blowing away early adoption rates of its Tiger software. In contrast, Microsoft has sold as many as 88 million copies of Vista.
Despite the uptick in U.S. retail sales of parental controls, some parents buy such software and then are left baffled by how to use it, or don't have the time to properly install it, according to analysts and parent advocates. That's why experts believe that operating-system software must be extremely easy and effective to use--which both Vista and Apple have proved to be so far. As millions of parents begin to upgrade their computers with the preinstalled software, parental controls on the PC may start to become mainstream, they say.
"Parental controls at the operating system level is really the best way on the family PC," said Anne Collier, co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a community site for parents and kid safety. "There are more options for the parent and it's seamless, rather than having to install something that may or may not crash the system."
Feature by feature, Vista's and Leopard's parental controls are on par--with time settings, various levels of site and application blocking, and log activity files. But for parents of kids who play games online or on the desktop, Vista offers parents an edge with more granular controls for games. The settings include detailed age and content appropriateness ratings for games from an industry nonprofit called the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB. Parents of a 5-year-old boy could allow him to only play "early childhood" games, for example.
"That's definitely a strength with Vista--where families are using it for gaming it has the rating system so that parents can block games based on (their child's age and content appropriateness)," said Tom Laemmel, Windows product manager. That parental control feature was recently added to Microsoft's Xbox, too.
In terms of user interface, however, Apple controls come off cleaner and simpler. Parents can configure their child's Apple home page dock with only three tabs and one-click options so that younger kids operate the computer more easily. Leopard includes drop-down menus for setting when and how long a child can be on the computer. Microsoft's Vista, in contrast, offers a calendar grid to set time.
In addition, Apple's Leopard settings newly enable parents to control a child's computer from their own, unlike Vista.
"We have a rich set of parental controls that are incredibly easy to use and that give parents the flexibility to decide how to use them and to create a certain experience for their child on the Mac," said Chris Bourdon, senior product line manager for Mac OS.
Microsoft's Laemmel said the company is good at remote administrative controls in the business realm, but in the home, it's unnecessary.
"Within the home environment, you want it to be straightforward, you don't want to have to have an IT person," Laemmel said.
Continued: Controlling risque anime
Digital kids
Parents the winner in Leopard, Vista showdown
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: November 20, 2007 4:00 a.m. PST
del.icio.us Digg this
In a showdown of new parental controls in Apple's Leopard versus Microsoft's year-old Vista, there's one clear winner--the parent.
When Apple unveiled its newest operating system on October 26, the computer maker made its first major overture to parents by infusing Leopard with a slick set of child controls. New settings help parents manage a child's time online, block use of certain Web sites or applications like instant chat or iTunes, and watch over what kids do and who they communicate with when Mom and Dad aren't around.
Apple was playing catch-up to Microsoft's parental controls for Vista, which the computer giant unveiled in January. It, too, made its biggest push into the parental-control market with Vista, adding the same finely tuned features, so much so that parental advocates say Vista's parent controls are a reason to buy the software. And that's true of Apple now, too.
"The battle to one-up each other in parental controls is only going to benefit consumers," said Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis at the research firm the NPD Group. "There's really no excuse now for parents not to lock down their PCs for their children."
Parents are clearly paying more attention to technology for managing their children's computer use, especially as more kids venture online at younger ages. As one proof point, U.S. retail sales of parental control software were up 47.3 percent in the first nine months of 2007 over the same period last year, according to NPD, which tracks sales of major retailers such as Amazon.com and BestBuy. Top sellers at stores are controls from Enteractive, Microforum, and ContentWatch.
Apple and Microsoft don't have numbers on how many customers use parental controls, but analysts say the feature will easily be a selling point for Leopard and Vista this holiday season. Apple sold 2 million copies of Leopard in the first weekend it was available, blowing away early adoption rates of its Tiger software. In contrast, Microsoft has sold as many as 88 million copies of Vista.
Despite the uptick in U.S. retail sales of parental controls, some parents buy such software and then are left baffled by how to use it, or don't have the time to properly install it, according to analysts and parent advocates. That's why experts believe that operating-system software must be extremely easy and effective to use--which both Vista and Apple have proved to be so far. As millions of parents begin to upgrade their computers with the preinstalled software, parental controls on the PC may start to become mainstream, they say.
"Parental controls at the operating system level is really the best way on the family PC," said Anne Collier, co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a community site for parents and kid safety. "There are more options for the parent and it's seamless, rather than having to install something that may or may not crash the system."
Feature by feature, Vista's and Leopard's parental controls are on par--with time settings, various levels of site and application blocking, and log activity files. But for parents of kids who play games online or on the desktop, Vista offers parents an edge with more granular controls for games. The settings include detailed age and content appropriateness ratings for games from an industry nonprofit called the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB. Parents of a 5-year-old boy could allow him to only play "early childhood" games, for example.
"That's definitely a strength with Vista--where families are using it for gaming it has the rating system so that parents can block games based on (their child's age and content appropriateness)," said Tom Laemmel, Windows product manager. That parental control feature was recently added to Microsoft's Xbox, too.
In terms of user interface, however, Apple controls come off cleaner and simpler. Parents can configure their child's Apple home page dock with only three tabs and one-click options so that younger kids operate the computer more easily. Leopard includes drop-down menus for setting when and how long a child can be on the computer. Microsoft's Vista, in contrast, offers a calendar grid to set time.
In addition, Apple's Leopard settings newly enable parents to control a child's computer from their own, unlike Vista.
"We have a rich set of parental controls that are incredibly easy to use and that give parents the flexibility to decide how to use them and to create a certain experience for their child on the Mac," said Chris Bourdon, senior product line manager for Mac OS.
Microsoft's Laemmel said the company is good at remote administrative controls in the business realm, but in the home, it's unnecessary.
"Within the home environment, you want it to be straightforward, you don't want to have to have an IT person," Laemmel said.
Continued: Controlling risque anime
Digital kids
Parents the winner in Leopard, Vista showdown
Steve Borsch, a father from Minneapolis and CEO of a consulting company, said he was seriously looking at buying a software package of parental controls to manage computer usage by his 13-year-old son, whom Borsch had caught looking at risque anime sites a couple of times. But he waited for the release of Apple's Leopard because he's a fan of the Mac and OS-level controls, which add up to one fewer moving part on the computer, he said.
He set up an account for his son, and the controls are password-protected. With Leopard, he restricts his son from unfettered access to the Web and applications such as file-sharing service BitTorrent. He has also set allowances for sites like Anime-Planet.com, a cartoon site, but blocked a similar URL without a dash between the words, which is a pornographic site. On school days, he restricts computer use between 9:30 p.m. and 6 a.m.; on weekends, his son must stay offline from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m.
After using the Mac parental controls for several weeks, he said he particularly likes the ability to control his son's computer from his own, or remote controls.
"Rather than having me run up to his room and open system preferences, he'll yell down to me that he wants to visit a particular site, and I'll just add a site on the approved list. It's great," Borsch said.
He also likes the ability to see every application his son uses.
"If he decides he can slip one by me and download an application that I haven't purposely set up in parental controls, I can see whatever app he runs in (log files). Or I can log on and share his screen and he doesn't know it. There's a great deal of oversight I could have. In my opinion, kids have to play and explore, but I have the controls in place to make sure he doesn't wander down the wrong road."
When Microsoft released Vista, it unveiled its most extensive parental controls yet. It added settings that enable parents to regulate which sites a child can use, almost to a granular effect. For example, a parent can block Web sites that contain references to tobacco or alcohol.
Laemmel uses the Vista parental controls with his 12-year-old daughter, but he takes the trusting approach. He looks at the monthly activity reports that are newly available with Vista controls, but that's all.
Still, no system of protection is perfect. Some people have reported issues with Leopard's parental controls hogging memory and CPU usage, according to Josh Tigford, owner of the Apple Blog based in Denver. But Apple said it hadn't heard such complaints.
Conrad Sykes, an 18-year-old from Spokane, Wash., already has reported on his blog TheComputerKid.com about how kids can get around Vista's parental controls. He suggests that kids can work around the controls by using Web proxies, applications that encrypt Web site access.
"There are thousands of Web proxies, and it would become a full-time job for a parent to block all the proxies," Sykes said.
Neither Leopard nor Vista parental controls address the increasing mobility of devices in the home. More and more kids use handheld devices with built-in Web browser and Wi-Fi capabilities, making it possible for them to go online nearly anywhere without supervision.
For example, a parent of a 15-year-old said his son saved up money to buy an iPod Touch. When configuring the device, his son asked for the home Wi-Fi network password, and realized that he didn't have much control over his new device.
"I did not give him the key to our home network," the dad said. "I did my research to find out that there isn't much I can do technically. I could put up a firewall in my house but what is to keep kids from jumping online at a friend's house, or McDonald's?"
An Apple representative said the company hasn't offered parental controls for devices like the iTouch, but the Safari browser bookmarks could pass from the computer to the device. Similarly, Microsoft's parental controls aren't mobile, but the company recently introduced settings for the Xbox.
Parental controls in operating systems are "a good step forward for parents," Collier said. "But it's not a panacea. There are so many devices that they can access the Net with and so many places they can access the Net."
Send insights or tips on this topic to stefanie.olsen@cnet.com.