I’m not pleased with this move, but its implementation has me wondering. I barely keep up with anything these days so I was taken by surprise after I updated. And, probably due to the decrepitude, I was annoyed for a few days that my phone had been nerfed and I had to roll back, before trying probably the first thing any younger person locked out would.

I’m curious, if there’s anyone who hasn’t verified a spare account, if they would point their phone at things? It might take a moment, and there’s no real feedback until the phone accepts your evidence. People have said it takes other people’s credit cards and ID, but I’m wondering if it’ll accept a pet passport too, or really what the limit is.

I unlurked and made a thread last night, but I think it might be hidden due to account age: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47511919

Anyway, I just updated. Didn’t think about it, just wanted to send that Bigfoot emoji to my ‘Squatcher friend, and get the security updates. However, after the post-install reboot, I see a screen suggesting I confirm that I’m over 18. Yes, I’m over 18, what’s it to you, phone?

The default confirmation method is a credit card. I’m out of luck here because it won’t accept my debit card. After that there’s the option to send a photo of a driving licence or “national ID” off to somewhere to be deleted soon we promise. Sorry, mysterious trusted Apple partner, I don’t have either of those. How have I lived without them? Pretty easy so far, but that’s really not the issue here is it?

You can defer the confirming, but the bozofied implementation will kindly flip the kids-mode switch for you. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at the content restrictions before, so I’m not sure what’s changed in practice. Things like Tinder show up in the App Store. Is that a kids’ app? I never used it. The National Lottery and Betfred too. I’m not a gambler, so I don’t know the most deranged ones to check. I tried DuckDuckGoing a few variations on “naked”, like “the naked ape”, “naked film”, “naked Mike Leigh”, “Naked Gun”, “naked mole rat”, and well, bad news, rodent fans. Desmond Morris got through, though. I guess there’s an OS level block on accessing the obvious websites, because I’m being told nope while using a VPN. I’m curious, are there any news sources etc that are blocked via this method, or is it just adult material?

Won’t get on my soapbox too much about there being something ulterior at the heart of all of these mandated “protections”, whether it be control, empire, censorship, surveillance, or financial incentive. But that’s what it’s all about, right?

I’ll have to try to roll back to iOS 26.3 for now, but perhaps some of you will know a workaround for this most dopey answer to a very specious requirement?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47511919

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