Why Apple's App Limits is Only A Publicity Stunt

Yesterday, Apple announced some new tools in the battle against phone addiction. The primary tool introduced is called App Limits, a feature that allows you to assign time limits to certain apps before your phone will block you from accessing them. Unless you hit the ignore button.

Before we move forward, let's get this out of the way: I am not an Android fanboy trying to downplay Apple's latest announcement. I am currently a happy iPhone user. However, I am not in a committed relationship with Apple nor Google. I play the field. I have been with Android devices, and I have been with iOS devices. I have even been with both Android and iOS devices at the same time. I am all about features and what works best for me at the time. Now, let us continue.

Is phone addiction an issue? I would argue that it is, as I am sure most people would. I think we all see nearly countless examples per day that would reinforce the belief that there is a phone addiction issue in our society. And that provides the perfect publicity opportunity for Apple - to offer the illusion that they are doing something about the problem.

Apple offering a tool to limit usage of their devices is akin to tobacco companies offering services to help you quit smoking; there are some tools they have made available, and they will casually mention them occasionally, but then they summon the spirit of Bill Lumbergh and suddenly you hear, "If you could just buy more of our product, that would be great."

Apple, and all other manufacturers and developers, want you addicted to their products. These companies rely on our dependence on their products. If we stop relying on their products then they lose business and money, and that is not how for-profit companies survive. The primary goal of any for-profit company is to generate profit, and cutting dependence on their product is taking the path away from that goal.

With that said, let's dive in and take a look at the new phone addiction-fighting features announced by Apple, so I can clarify my stance.

How does the App Limits feature work? Well, let's use Facebook as an example. Let's say you feel you are using Facebook too often throughout the day and it is taking up far too much of your time. App Limits will let you set a daily time limit for that app. If you give yourself one hour of usage per day, if you hit that hour you will receive a notification on the screen that says your time limit has been reached and you will no longer be able to use that app.

Well, that sounds pretty useful, right?

Sure, except for the fact that every person who has a smartphone has one in order to easily access this exact type of app. We want to be able to pick up our phones when we feel boredom and access entertaining content. Whether that is updates on Facebook, pictures on Instagram, memes on Imgur, the news, music, videos, information - whatever it may be - quick, easy, access to entertainment and information is the exact reason each of us carries a smartphone or tablet with us. Apple knows this as well, which is why on the notification page that appears is an option to ignore the limit you set, allowing you to continue using the app.

I am not saying Apple should be able to lock you out of features on your phone - it is your phone after all. However, if we are truly attempting to fight addiction, how is this feature going to do that when the tap of a finger can override the block? While I am in no way attempting to compare drug addiction to phone addiction (the first thought that comes to mind while talking about addiction is drugs), if you have a person who is addicted to heroin and they need a fix, and you say to that person, "You cannot have any more heroin...unless you want to." What choice is a person in withdrawal going to make? A person with their phone, bored or with time to kill, is going to click on "Ignore limit" almost every time. Then, if the user does not disable the feature altogether, clicking that ignore option will eventually be an action performed without a second thought, similar to clearing a text or email notification.

This feature makes me think back to when I first got my Apple Watch, or the Fitbit before it. You receive notifications reminding you to stand, move, or to breathe, and at first you think that it is helpful and you try to follow along. A week later you are lecturing your wrist-wear, telling it not to tell you what to do. Before long those notifications are cleared without being read, or disabled altogether.

While this feature, in my opinion, will end up being nearly useless for helping most adults curb phone addiction, using this feature in coordination with parental control tools can definitely help parents reduce phone addiction in children. I think this is a fantastic option and one I wholly support. The issue here is getting parents to take the time to learn how to configure these settings. Between helping friends and family with their devices and working for Verizon Wireless in the past, I cannot recall ever seeing the existing parental control options that are available in iOS enabled on a child's phone.

In addition to App Limits, Apple is also releasing a Screen Time app that will show how much time you spend utilizing different apps. This, however, is really nothing more than a graphical display of data already available under the Battery settings of iOS devices.

One beneficial option of these soon-to-be-released features is the ability to group notifications. As stated in Apple's conference, and a point that I agree with, a major driver of phone addiction is the barrage of notifications received on our devices every day. Every email, text, and social media notification is an individual alert that keeps pulling your attention to your device, sometimes causing a feeling of being overwhelmed and a need to address the flood of notifications. This new feature will allow you to group these notifications as single alerts for incoming texts or emails, and so on.

While this will be a nice option to have, do I think this will help drive down phone addiction? Not necessarily. In fact, for some, turning on this setting could only pique curiosity when you have a new notification. At least with the singular alerts (depending on security settings) the user can see what each notification is for and relates to, but with this feature enabled it will be a mystery until you open the notifying app. For me, that is more of a pulling force than being able to see what the notification is for and deciding whether it can wait. I am willing to give it a shot though - it would be nice to not feel my Apple Watch vibe as often as it does.

At the end of the day, Apple released a lot of addiction-fighting tools. Will they work? I don't think so. I do hope these tools help users realize just how much time they may be spending on their devices while life passes by, though. Maybe it will convince them to try and use their phones a little less. Realistically, other than a limited number of children, it appears the only beneficiary from these new features will be Apple. It makes it look like they understand there is an addiction problem and that they are trying to do something about it. In reality, putting a button in the settings labeled "Phone Addiction" that the user can slide to Off would have been just as effective. However, it looks like Apple is trying, and that will generate good publicity. Good publicity means more money, and more money means that business is good. Mission accomplished for Apple.

The only true way to fight phone addiction is to make our phones less useful - devices that are not convenient in assisting with a multitude of daily tasks or in providing entertainment - and that will never happen. While I agree that phone addiction is a real thing, it is also the new normal, and I only expect to see our usage of these devices increase, not decrease.