Family Base with iPhone

[WAYWIL71]

When will Verizon provide the Family Base companion app for iPhones?

We're on day 2 of the free trial for Family Base, and am not sure why anyone would pay for the service.  While the "service" costs $4.99/month for everyone, apparently most of what we pay for is not available because Verizon won't create a companion app for the iPhone.  It appears this issue was first noticed in 2014, and there is still not an answer?  It would seem there are two options for Verizon:

1. Work with Apple to get the companion app on iTunes.  (Preferred option)

2. Cut the fee for iPhone users to $1.99/month so we are only paying for the items we can use.

If this issue were a couple of months old, it would be understandable.  But, two years in, there is no excuse for not having the companion app.  And, since Verizon doesn't provide an explanation anywhere for why there is no companion app, apparently they agree there is no excuse.

Since teens and pre-teens are not paying the bills, it would seem Verizon and Apple should provide the service the parents want.

[pherson]

Since teens and preteens are the end users, if they need to be monitored like that they either don't need a phone or they don't need a smartphone. Verizon doesn't play a role in parenting; that's the parents job.

[WAYWIL71]

Are you insane?  Using your "logic", if I go to a restaurant, order and pay for food, and then don't get the food, I shouldn't have gone to the restaurant in the first place because it's not their job to feed me.  I should have made my own sandwich.

Verizon offers a service for $5 per month to assist parent's with monitoring and limiting their children's phone usage.  I don't expect them to login and set up the restrictions, I just want to use the service I purchased to do what the service claims to do.

Next time you want to pontificate on the parent's role in a chat room, lay off the drugs for awhile first.

[ChrisPotts4]

Really? Their phones are a privilege. But also a tool. Its an excellent consequence to take a way however its terribly inconvenient to not to be able to communicate with my older teen, who also happens to drive. You are right that there are times he does not need a smart phone - I want to take that away until he improves a behavior - WHICH IS THE POINT OF WANTING TO USE FAMILY BASE. Seriously, what kind of response is that? Beyond less than helpful and ridiculously judgmental....

[somenumbskull]

really?  what an ignorant answer pherson.  I will take every precaution necessary in a world that has lots of temptation and outside influence, especially when "everyone's doing it" (and that includes all their friends having smartphones)...and when I choose Verizon as a service provider for other best-in-class reasons, I expect them to offer best-in-class services! They're a big player that should be able to get what they need at Apple's level.

[pherson]

Kids don't need smartphones. A basic phone would do just fine.

[somenumbskull]

I don't disagree pherson, but unfortunately, it's the world we live in...and that world was not encouraged or promoted by parents like you or me.

[pherson]

Also, it could very well be up to Apple why the application is not compatible. And the Verizon website specifically states it is not compatible.

[Acrillix]

FamilyBase Companion App and any application that is on the Apple App Store goes through testing and decoding for safety and security. The app may be being denied on the App Store because it is essentially allowing remote access to the device or something similar. Who knows? Call Apple and ask them I guess.

[vzw_customer_support · Accepted solution]

Being able to manage the lines on your account is definitely important so I understand your concern WAYWIL71. We are always here to help.

The Companion app is not available for iPhones, and we have no information at this time if or when it will become available in the future. The cost of this service $4.99 for all operating systems. But I can definitely forward your feedback.

What specific function are you trying to do on the child device that you are having difficulty with?

JohnB_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the "Correct Answer" button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[WAYWIL71]

We want to limit who she can contact and monitor who she contacts (phone calls/texts).  Apparently, the companion app needs to be on her phone for this to truly work.  Also, we want to be able to find where she is, but this requires a separate service for an additional $10/month charge.  Plus, the restrictions make it so the Find Friend app will not work.

Overall, the theory behind this service seems good.  However, in our experience and in the research we have been doing, it doesn't appear this service is able to work in the way we would like it to, or in the way we thought it did.

The marketing of this service lead us to believe we could monitor and restrict our daughter's access, but the reality is that we can make it so her phone won't work in ways we want it to (i.e., Find Friends), and will work in ways we don't want it to (i.e., phone calls from total strangers from New York can be made to her phone).

[somenumbskull]

>>What specific function are you trying to do on the child device that you are having difficulty with?

I've been using FamilyBase now for about a month and it appears to do the basic function pretty well:

      1) blocks all cell service based on the time restrictions I set and

      2) notifies me when my child is approaching data usage limits also set by me.

The two missing features of FamilyBase (the part for parents) I would like are:

      3) the ability to lock my child's phone on demand (but could live without) but more importantly,

      4) the Activity log and Contacts list to show actual NAMES that my kid has associated with that contact number as it's stored in her phone. If a companion app for iPhones did even just this last feature, that would be great!  Otherwise, we're just left to sort through a long string of phone numbers that doesn't really help monitor who's who in her iPhone's address book!

[DebHaley]

I just this week signed up for the Family Base plan for the free 1 month trial so I am by no means an expert.  I looked at the mobile app tonight & somehow happened upon the ability to allow it to access my contacts which populated all the phone numbers that I have from my child's friends(and family, his work, etc.) , to populate into those fields. It can not, obviously, replace a number with a name on the list of #'s your child has been contacting unless you already have that name with a # in your contact list.

[ChrisPotts4]

I find it interesting that a co-worker who has ATT and also teens with iPhones can open the ATT ap on his iPhone and turn off his child's data and limit texting to the safe contacts he's assigned...... Come on Verizon. ATT can do it... Why can't you???

[somenumbskull]

aside from switching carriers (which is *always* an option, although not an easy one), we are also considering a separate solution. Check out Disney's "Circle" (http://meetcircle.com). The home network device is $99 with the Circle-Go companion app for $10/month.  This looks promising in how to handle online safety with our teenage iPhone users!

Technical readers might be interested in the "how they do it" details:

https://meetcircle.com/media/documents/circle-go-technical-information.pdf

https://meetcircle.com/media/documents/circle-how-it-works.pdf

[mOPNB]

@WAYWIL71 I hope this helps, this is what we have done with Family Base and our iphones:

1. Use the desktop application to set up your Family Base settings for your child's phone; got to Manage FamilyBase.  From the desktop you can set up blocked hours, data usage, and enable Trusted Contacts phone numbers, under the controls tab.

2. Then I used the Family Base app to edit school and night hours.  You can also set time restrictions from the desktop page,but I liked that they called them "school and night" hours in the app.  It made more sense to me there.

3. I logged back into the desktop app and made sure the Trusted Contacts numbers would be allowed during both school and night hours.

4. On the Manage FamilyBase​ page, I also set up data limits, when she reaches a certain data point, it's turned off.

Then I enabled find my iphone on all family iphones.  Should I want to find her, or lock her phone, I'll do it from that app rather than Family Base.  I just used it now, to verify that the daughter turned her phone off at school.

[ANNMCD16]

Thank you Verizon. I have been paying the $4.99 for this app. Just realized it hasn't been working - now thank you to these forums, b/c my daughter now has an Iphone. I'm really only irritated that any of the service/tech reps on the phone for the last hour couldn't just explain that.

Although I'd like to cancel the service now - I do still need it in order to restrict her data usage, is that correct? There is no other way - like there was to turn off mobile data on a Samsung??

[R2marker]

I added an iphone for my teenage son to my family plan based mostly on the apparent strength of the parental controls, and assurances from 3 different verizon representatives that I would be able to block the phone at will from my Parent Phone app.  It wasn't till we got the phone home and tried to set it up that I found out, (not from verizon but from this forum) that the Companion App isn't available for our iphone, and consequently the few features I was sold on aren't available.  Verizon's solution is to suggest that I exchange the iphone for an android.  Great! I'll just convince my son that the phone that he so carefully selected, (and I vetted based on Verizon sales pitches) has to be returned so that Dad can shut the phone off anytime he wants.  Seriously?  (Every parental control solution I've ever dealt with seems to be designed by people who don't have kids)

Verizon ought to fix this, 

[pherson]

so who has control? The parent or the child??

[pherson]

Kids do NOT NEED smartphones.