Apple and American Academy of Pediatrics launch digital habit guide

Apple has partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to launch a new guide titled ‘Building Healthy Digital Habits: A Guide for Families’. The initiative is designed to help parents manage their children's device usage and balance screen time with essential activities such as sleep, physical exercise, schoolwork, and social interaction.

The guide is specifically tailored to work with new parental control features introduced in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27. It outlines a six-step process for families: initiating conversations about device use, creating age-appropriate child accounts, setting safety permissions for websites and apps via ‘Ask to Buy’ and ‘Ask to Browse’, establishing usage schedules through ‘Time Allowances’, managing communication safety, and adjusting settings as children grow.

Key technical updates include expanded Communication Safety protections, which are enabled by default for users under 18 to block sensitive content like nudity and violence in shared media and FaceTime calls. Apple’s Vice President of Health and Fitness, Sumbul Desai, stated the goal is to connect AAP’s expert guidelines with integrated device tools to provide a practical starting point for families.