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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.

OS screen shots

"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."
--Anne Collier, co-director, ConnectSafely.org

"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


Add a Comment (Log in or register) Showing 1 of 2 pages (120 Comments)
FYI
by AJ Pants November 20, 2007 4:36 AM PST
OSX has had parental controls since day one, they were just in a different place. Now who's playing 'catch-up' again?
Reply to this comment
FYI
by AJ Pants November 20, 2007 4:36 AM PST
OSX has had parental controls since day one, they were just in a different place. Now who's playing 'catch-up' again?
Reply to this comment
New in Leopard?
by akabaka November 20, 2007 5:12 AM PST
With the exception of the new timer function, all the parental
controls you mentioned have been on my Mac for years. (I haven't
upgraded to Leopard.)
Reply to this comment
New in Leopard?
by akabaka November 20, 2007 5:12 AM PST
With the exception of the new timer function, all the parental
controls you mentioned have been on my Mac for years. (I haven't
upgraded to Leopard.)
Reply to this comment
Reporting Services for Games
by Len Bullard November 20, 2007 6:19 AM PST
Skipping over the MS vs Apple bait...

How many online sites for children offer parental reporting services, that is, periodic reports sent to the home via email detailing online activies in that site by that account?
Reply to this comment
Reporting Services for Games
by Len Bullard November 20, 2007 6:19 AM PST
Skipping over the MS vs Apple bait...

How many online sites for children offer parental reporting services, that is, periodic reports sent to the home via email detailing online activies in that site by that account?
Reply to this comment
Censorship must die
by OmegaWolf747 November 20, 2007 6:33 AM PST
Or parents could just try communicating their values with their kids instead of stooping to censorship and snooping.
Reply to this comment
Censorship must die
by OmegaWolf747 November 20, 2007 6:33 AM PST
Or parents could just try communicating their values with their kids instead of stooping to censorship and snooping.
Reply to this comment
Let's not forget open source
by matthewboh November 20, 2007 7:07 AM PST
Dansguardian has been around for about 5 or 6 years, so why is this capability news in Vista or OSX?
Reply to this comment
Let's not forget open source
by matthewboh November 20, 2007 7:07 AM PST
Dansguardian has been around for about 5 or 6 years, so why is this capability news in Vista or OSX?
Reply to this comment
Link broken
by sportav November 20, 2007 7:26 AM PST
The "Controlling risque anime" link does not work.
Reply to this comment
Link broken
by sportav November 20, 2007 7:26 AM PST
The "Controlling risque anime" link does not work.
Reply to this comment
More Granularity = No Use
by Dr Dude November 20, 2007 7:34 AM PST
Typical of MS not to understand the end user (unless the end
user is a large IT geek). It builds all of the functionality in its
software such that any task can be done 35 different ways. This
causes more confusion than it offers help.

Most people are not geeks like us (who hang out on a tech
board). Most parents would just give up if they had to decipher
all of the MS granularity in their software.

Make it simple to use. Understand your customer and what is
important.
Reply to this comment
More Granularity = No Use
by Dr Dude November 20, 2007 7:34 AM PST
Typical of MS not to understand the end user (unless the end
user is a large IT geek). It builds all of the functionality in its
software such that any task can be done 35 different ways. This
causes more confusion than it offers help.

Most people are not geeks like us (who hang out on a tech
board). Most parents would just give up if they had to decipher
all of the MS granularity in their software.

Make it simple to use. Understand your customer and what is
important.
Reply to this comment
Apple "made its first major overture to parents"..?
by Tui Pohutukawa November 20, 2007 9:24 AM PST
What is the author of this article talking about? I currently run
Tiger, and extensive Parental Controls are already available,
under System Preferences/Accounts. Options include:

Limiting the applications a user can access
Restricting a user's access to email
Restricting the websites a user can view
Restricting what users can do with the computer
Restricting whom a user can chat with

According to the article, in Leopard "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." These settings have been available since 2005.
How is Apple "playing catch-up to Microsoft's parental controls"?
This statement is incorrect. Has the author ever used OS X?

I hope CNET will correct these errors.
Reply to this comment
Apple "made its first major overture to parents"..?
by Tui Pohutukawa November 20, 2007 9:24 AM PST
What is the author of this article talking about? I currently run
Tiger, and extensive Parental Controls are already available,
under System Preferences/Accounts. Options include:

Limiting the applications a user can access
Restricting a user's access to email
Restricting the websites a user can view
Restricting what users can do with the computer
Restricting whom a user can chat with

According to the article, in Leopard "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." These settings have been available since 2005.
How is Apple "playing catch-up to Microsoft's parental controls"?
This statement is incorrect. Has the author ever used OS X?

I hope CNET will correct these errors.
Reply to this comment
Thinking the same thing, but...
by ssmiroldo November 20, 2007 9:56 AM PST
I was thinking the same thing. Parental controls have been
around for a while in OS X.

Leopard's parental control features, however, are vastly
improved over Tiger. I think that's why the author mentioned
Leopard's "major" improvements in parental controls such as
time scheduling. Tiger already had limited application use as well
as site blocking/allowing but Leopard offers more control in
these areas and also provides the parent to auto-lockout all
computer use between certain times (on a day-to-day basis).

Leopard also offers logging information for websites visited,
websites blocked, applications used as well as iChat logs.
Reply to this comment
Thinking the same thing, but...
by ssmiroldo November 20, 2007 9:56 AM PST
I was thinking the same thing. Parental controls have been
around for a while in OS X.

Leopard's parental control features, however, are vastly
improved over Tiger. I think that's why the author mentioned
Leopard's "major" improvements in parental controls such as
time scheduling. Tiger already had limited application use as well
as site blocking/allowing but Leopard offers more control in
these areas and also provides the parent to auto-lockout all
computer use between certain times (on a day-to-day basis).

Leopard also offers logging information for websites visited,
websites blocked, applications used as well as iChat logs.
Reply to this comment
Has Laemmel heard of Windows Home Server?!
by technewsjunkie November 20, 2007 5:39 PM PST
"Within the home environment, you want it to be straightforward,
you don't want to have to have an IT person," Laemmel said."
Reply to this comment
Has Laemmel heard of Windows Home Server?!
by technewsjunkie November 20, 2007 5:39 PM PST
"Within the home environment, you want it to be straightforward,
you don't want to have to have an IT person," Laemmel said."
Reply to this comment
Showing 1 of 2 pages (120 Comments)
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