iMessage is the new messaging service for IOS5. Daddy Clay discusses the various parental controls available for the iPhone. Telematics from AT&T and the iPhone itself allow for text limits, voice limits, web access, including YouTube, and email among others. These work great in combination... until you add iMessage to the mix. Because iMessage is a wireless and IOS5 operating system based application, it essentially bypasses AT&T parental controls. iMessage is also not in the restrictions panel, so while you can turn it off, it is not pass coded. Your child can simply turn it back on. If that wasn't bad enough, iMessage conversations happen on all of your shared devices at the same time. So, your iMessage chat on your iPhone, will show up on the iPad your child is using. (And their conversations will also appear on your device.) Daddy Clay illustrates a real life mishap with iMessage communications, and the difficulty of exerting control over this new service, as well as the simple solution, that has to come from Apple.

Episode #841 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Clay:  Today's eProofing challenge, iMessages from Mac, the new messaging service on iOS 5. [music]
Daddy Brad:  Today's episode is brought to you by BabyBjorn. In the design of all their products, safety comes first, BabyBjorn.
Daddy Clay: I'm really excited because my 13 year old son recently convinced my wife to gift me an iPhone 4S. Now, his motives weren't completely selfless. He suspected correctly that if I was given a new iPhone, I might upgrade his old Samsung Rugby, which has always been my recommendation for a first phone for kids, to my hand‑me‑down iPhone 4. Like this one.
I've often said in the past that a hand‑me‑down iPhone or an iPhone three in a tough case, like this Otter Box, is a good choice for a second phone for kids because it has two sets of interlocking parental controls that are really easy to use.
The telematics, calls and SMS texting can be controlled by, in our case, AT&T's Smart Limit service. It's a service that cost $4.99 a month. Really, should be free. It's sort of like, charging you to put a safety on your Glock. Anyway, it allows you to budget text messages, set hours the phone can send and receive calls messages and even restricts numbers.
The iPhone itself allows limits on web access through the restrictions panel. Now, there's no filters here. It's just an on‑off switch for web browsing, YouTube, email and more. The two work together great until iMessage.
A new service, iMessage, allows any device running iOS 5, that is, iPhones, iPads or iPad Touches, to send unlimited and multimedia message, view wireless or 3G to another person using one of these devices. These are not SMS messages through AT&T so they are not filtered by Smart Limit.
In effect, iMessage defeats the parental controls set up by AT&T. Sure, you can turn iMessage off, but it's not in the restrictions panel so it's not protected by a pass code. So, as soon as the kid figures out that you've turned iMessage off, he or she can just turn it right back on.
Here's the kicker. Here's a feature that Apple has been touting about iMessage. You're having a conversation via iMessage on you iPad and you decided that you want to set that down and continue the conversation on your phone or, say, you iPod Touch. The conversation happens on all your devices that are one account, simultaneously.
What if you have shared devices like we do in our family? All the kids use the iPad. All of them use this iPod Touch. Yet, all of them are linked to my Mac account. Therefore, if I'm having a conversation with one of my old fraternity brothers about the days‑gone‑by on my iPad, my kid can be in the other room, listening in.
True iMessage story. This happened to me yesterday. I had a very important business meeting. The guy I was meeting with wanted to change the location of our meeting so he sent me a text message. Instead of sending it to my phone, he sent it accidentally to my email. Therefore, because of iMessage, it was distributed to all the devices including the iPhone that I had recently handed down to my son.
Suddenly, he gets a message from a strange person saying, "Meet me at 2:30 at such‑and‑such restaurant" and he thinks he's getting creeped. He thinks he's got a perv on the other end of the line. So, of course, the first thing he does is text back, "Who the hell are you." Then he texts, "This is..." and gives his name.
Which I didn't think was too very smart. We talked about that later. This is a good illustration of how wires can get crossed if you're not careful about how you use iMessage.
So, how do we eProof all of our iOS five devices so it's safe for the family and for the grown‑ups to use iMessage? It's pretty tough.
Turn the wireless system off at night? Well, that's a possibility, although inconvenient for the grown‑ups that are staying up late. You can turn iMessage off and hope the kids don't discover it and turn it back on again. Really, it seems to me that the solution is up to Apple.
Hey, Apple, do us a favor. Take the iMessage control and put it in the restrictions panel. Put it behind a pass code so that we can eProof all our devices and make them safe for our kids once again.
Well, that's all today here at DadLabs on the subject of eProofing. If you've got some ideas or suggestions about ways to get around this and other ways we can eProof these devices, please drop us a comment. Join the conversation over at dadlabs.com.