Google has Family Link. Apple has Screen Time.
Both do the same job (parental controls on your child’s phone)….. but they work differently depending on the system.
If you’re deciding which to use, here’s the comparison without the jargon.
Family Link (Android)
It’s Google’s parental control app. You install it on your phone and on your child’s, and you manage theirs from yours.
It allows per-app time limits, approving or blocking downloads, seeing their location and setting a bedtime lock.
Its strength: remote control. You change the rules from your phone without touching theirs.
Its weakness: as accounts approach adulthood, Google gradually loosens the restrictions. And some teenagers work out how to get around it.
Screen Time (iPhone)
It comes built into the iPhone. Nothing to install.
You manage it remotely with Family Sharing, or directly on your child’s phone with a passcode. It offers limits per app and category, downtime, content restrictions and a weekly report.
Because it lives inside the system, it’s hard to uninstall and pretty solid.
You’ll find the full walkthrough in our guide to parental controls on iPhone.
The differences that matter
- Installation: Screen Time is already on the iPhone; Family Link installs on both phones.
- System: one is iPhone only, the other Android only. They don’t mix.
- Location: Family Link shows it; Screen Time doesn’t (that’s Find My, separately).
- Usage report: both have one, and they’re similar.
In practice, you don’t choose between them. You use whichever matches the phone your child has.
iPhone, Screen Time. Android, Family Link.
The limit they both share
Both do their job well. But both are control from the outside.
And with teenagers, control from the outside runs straight into their need for independence. The lock helps….. but it doesn’t teach self-regulation, and it doesn’t stop the underlying fight.
Which is why more and more families combine it with another approach: making phone time something you earn.
Nitor runs on iPhone alongside Screen Time, but it changes the frame: instead of you doing the rationing, your child decides how much phone they get based on how much they move. To open the locked apps, they do a few reps first.
Less imposed control….. more of their own decision.
What if your child earned their screen time?
Nitor Fit locks the most addictive apps and unlocks them with exercise. Less arguing at home, and some sport every day.
