EU: Apple fights third-party screen time apps

A new report from The New York Times notes of Apple’s continued efforts to push users towards its first-party time tracking feature.

The report details that over the past year, Apple has “removed or restricted” at least 11 of the 17 most popular screen time and parental control applications on the App Store. In some cases, the apps were completely removed from the App Store, while some developers were forced to remove key features.

“They yanked us out of the blue with no warning,” said Amir Moussavian, chief executive of OurPact, the top parental-control iPhone app, with more than three million downloads. In February, Apple pulled the app, which accounted for 80 percent of OurPact’s revenue, from its App Store.

“They are systematically killing the industry,” Mr. Moussavian said.

Following Apple’s harsher stance on these parental control applications, developers of two of the most popular apps have filed a complaint with the European Union. Kidslox and Qustodio filed a complaint with the EU on Thursday, today’s report says. This comes following an antitrust complaint in Russia from Kaspersky Labs last month, which also centered on Screen Time in iOS 12.

CNET reports that Apple didn’t comment on the matter, but a spokesperson said that the iPhone-maker is treating all applications the same, even if they are from competitors. Regarding the apps in question, the spokesperson said it was a choice made by Apple to protect user privacy, “because they could grab too much data from a user’s device”.