Apple's new parental security offering includes finger painting - you roll your finger over areas of an iPhone display to stop your kids accessing content.
It's an intriguing feature implemented with little fanfare but one of many options that hopefully will stop children accessing or altering private information stored on a parent's iPhone, iPhone Touch or iPad - or, worse, racking up thousands of dollars in app and in-app purchases on their parents' credit cards.
Apple had copped a shellacking for a loophole in iTunes that enabled children to download "bait apps" - free apps that enticed them to spend thousands of dollars buying virtual objects.
As a result of a 2011 US class action, Apple last month tentatively agreed to pay an estimated $US100 million ($98m) in kind and cash to US parents whose kids bought virtual fish, unicorns, fairies and make-believe money - at exorbitant prices - while using bait apps.
Aussies were not part of the settlement but parents here have not been immune to big iTunes bills.
Some of the cases involved parents tragically linking their credit cards to their children's iTunes accounts.
Perth father Michael Borrer told The Australian his daughter racked up $1759.84 in three months while playing games such as My Little Pony and Smurf's Village. His daughter's iTunes account was linked to his partner's credit card.
The US action against Apple was launched in 2011, when parental controls in the iOS-world were not as strong as they are now.
The finger-painting, or "guided access" feature, lets a parent draw sections of the screen that will be disabled when a child uses an app on their iPhone.
They can't access other apps or push menu buttons in the disabled areas.
Even motion sensing and touch capability can be disabled.
Use can also be restricted to one app. A parent, for example, may restrict children's phone use to flicking through their camera photos.
Parents control the means to start and end guided access with a four-digit code and activate it by pressing the home button three times. There also are controls to restrict a child's activities and access to payments on their own iPhone.
In fact, with the latest bunch of controls a parent can virtually micro-manage children's use of their iPhones and iPads. Again the settings are secured with a four-digit PIN.
The restrictions menu enables parents to allow or disallow a child's access to any particular app on their iPhone or iPad, including the iTunes app where the financial damage is done.
They can decide whether the child can install or delete apps or use voice assistant Siri, and ban the downloading of media classified as having explicit language.
Parents also can disable access to specific content types such as movies, television shows, apps, books or podcasts, and prevent a child from downloading any media according to its rating under Australia's classification system.
They can enforce whether a child must enter a password for every iTunes purchase or download they attempt, or require them to re-enter their password every 15 minutes during a session of making purchases.
In the wake of the 2011 US class action Apple has added a button whereby parents can disable in-app purchases altogether.
This comes too late for Borrer but hopefully it will prevent him and other parents from experiencing future heartache.
The iTunes store on desktop computers offers another set of controls.
A parent can prevent access to radio content and library sharing, stop explicit content from showing up and restrict access to movies and TV shows based on their classification.
There are also account controls. Parents can decide to share their iTunes account with a young child but, if they do, Apple recommends never sharing the password.
Instead, the parent should enter it fresh each time it is needed.
Children over 13 should have their own iTunes account and it should never be linked to a parent's credit card.
They can be given gift cards or certificates instead - a little controlled cash to make their own apps purchases.
Even better, a parent can set up a monthly allowance, a specific amount of money that is regularly transferred to the child's iTunes account.
Then children can learn to plan their purchases of apps, music and movies. This system can be set up in the allowances section of "buy iTunes gifts" in the iTunes software.
Establishing separate accounts doesn't stop parents sharing expensive apps with children. A parent can give them temporary access to their account to download the app and, later, update it - but never share the password.
My wife and I are able to share a very expensive app dictionary we purchased in this way.
