Curfew01 Day types
School day, Friday, weekend, holiday.
Each weekday gets a day type. Exceptions swap in a holiday for Thanksgiving break, and the school's calendar feed can do it for you.
What Curfew does, hour by hour
One ordinary Tuesday.
Noah is twelve and has an iPhone. His parents set Curfew up once. Here is what happened today without anyone opening a settings screen.
7:00 AM
School hours start.
Only the school apps open. Everything else shows a short, kid-readable screen that says why and when it ends. Nobody had to take the phone away.
Block screen · Noah's phone
School hours.
Games open back up at 3:00 PM. Calls and school apps work now.
OKAsk for more time
3:00 PM
Free time, with a budget.
An hour of games and forty-five minutes of social, counted by the phone in fifteen-minute steps. Thirty minutes of homework apps earns fifteen more of games.
Today's allowances
Games1 hr
Social45 min
Earn 15 min of Games for every 30 min of School apps, up to 1 hr a day.
4:10 PM
Noah asks for more. Mom says yes from the Lock Screen.
The request reaches her phone as a Live Activity with three buttons. She taps Allow 15 min between meetings. His phone opens up before he has put it down.
Noah asked for more time
during Free time · Games
Allow 15 minAllow 30Not now
6:30 PM
Dinner. Every phone pauses.
Dad taps Family pause for 30 minutes from the table. Noah's phone and his sister's go quiet together. Calls still work, in case Grandma rings.
Paused
Noah and Mia · until 7:00 PM
Resume everyoneNoah and Mia · until 7:00 PM
9:00 PM
Bedtime, without the argument.
The Lock Screen shows a countdown to 7:00 AM. The phone did the saying no. Tomorrow is a school day, and Curfew already knows that too.
Bedtime
until 7:00 AM · Then School hours
9:59:40until 7:00 AM · Then School hours
Three decisions, made once.
Pick a preset for the kid's age and adjust. Everything below runs on the phone itself, with or without a connection.
02 Windows
School hours and bedtime, with their own allowed apps.
A window opens only the apps you pick. Bedtime can cross midnight. A focus session forces one for an hour when homework needs it.
03 Allowances
An hour of games. Forty-five minutes of social.
Counted by the phone in free time. Unused minutes can roll over, homework can earn more, and a good week earns a bonus.
What it needs on the phone.
iOS 18 or later
On the kid's iPhone and on yours. Curfew uses the Screen Time tools Apple opened to apps, and they need a current iPhone.
A child account in Family Sharing
Apple only lets an app set Screen Time limits on a phone signed in with a child account. Setting one up takes a few minutes in your own iPhone's settings.
One approval from you
The first time Curfew runs on the kid's phone, iOS asks a parent to approve Screen Time access with their Apple Account. After that, Curfew does the rest.