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Ignore No More – lock your child's device until they call you back

76 pointsby juliannover 10 years ago

32 comments

blueskin_over 10 years ago
Products like this are great, as they teach children how to get around stupid arbitrary restrictions from a young age, so are less likely to end up as drooling passive consumers poking at a tablet and more likely to become hackers.
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dm2over 10 years ago
If you thought your kids didn&#x27;t like you before, wait until you install something like this on their phone.<p>Emotions are weird, if you&#x27;re sitting around worrying about your child then you need a hobby. If it&#x27;s really a problem that your child goes somewhere without texting you if you asked them to then don&#x27;t let them go out next time. If they are in college and don&#x27;t answer your calls, then leave them alone, find something else to do, send them an email if you need to inform them of something or have something you want to discuss.<p>Kids go through weird phases, they lash out at parents for different reasons such as being unhappy with themselves or struggling to find purpose. Talk to them in person, ask difficult questions, if they don&#x27;t have an answer, ask again later or ask different questions.<p>Be a good roll-model by being calm, rational, humble, and honest. I can picture the mom who had the idea for this app, controlling, slightly crazy, comes off as bitchy.<p>What if your significant other installed a similar app on your phone? Would piss you off, right?<p>If you want to restrict the games kids play or the sites they visit on their phones, that&#x27;s probably for the better, be sure to inform them of the logical reasons such as the fact that game companies exploit human psychology to create addiction and many apps upload private information that could harm them later in life. But locking their phones because they haven&#x27;t called you back, I just can&#x27;t see how that&#x27;ll do anything but harm in the long-run.<p>&quot;Because I said so.&quot;, &quot;Do as I say, not as I do.&quot;, &quot;Say it, say I love you.&quot;<p>If you kid doesn&#x27;t answer their phone they are either in class, busy, have it on mute, in jail, dead, getting high, in a loud car, at a party with friends, having sex, eating somewhere, or they just don&#x27;t want to talk to you at the moment. If they are in jail, they&#x27;ll call you, if they&#x27;re dead, then there is nothing you can do about it, you&#x27;ll find out soon enough. In every other situation it&#x27;s not that critical that you hear their voice, send them a text message and find something to do.<p>It might just boil down to positive verses negative reinforcement.<p>Just my 2 cents about actually using this product as a parent. Looking at it as an app idea, it&#x27;s a good idea and looks well executed. I&#x27;m sure many parents will purchase it.
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jzwinckover 10 years ago
Danger: the front page says the child will always be able to call &quot;first responders,&quot; but the FAQ reveals that 911 is the only built-in one which the child cannot change. If you live outside the US, 911 may not work, leaving your child unable to dial emergency services.<p>Adding 112 and 999 to the list would help, but perhaps it&#x27;s better to just let the kid call whomever they like, and just block &quot;fun&quot; things like texting and other apps. After all, if your kid is out with friends and gets a bit lost, the best person to call will be one of those friends, not the police.
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martiukover 10 years ago
The perfect app for helicopter parenting, be sure to tell your child you don&#x27;t trust them as they leave the door.<p>I&#x27;m sure this would be a good product commercially.<p>The FAQ is a bit jarring, most of it seems to be self praise.
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philbarrover 10 years ago
What I find more interesting about this, besides the fact you can block your kids&#x27; phones, is the amount of effort put into the creation and marketing of it.<p>I mean - as far as I can tell [0] this is the only app this person has done, but they&#x27;ve created the website, set up a company, and I even heard about this on the UK BBC news! And at the moment they only have about 100 downloads?!<p>It would be interesting to hear the story behind this and how much this all cost. Does anyone know more? How did they manage to get such exposure on launch day&#x2F;week?<p>[0] reading <a href="http://ignorenomoreapp.com/mountaineer-technology-ventures" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ignorenomoreapp.com&#x2F;mountaineer-technology-ventures</a>
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fidotronover 10 years ago
In my experience many adults (meaning everyone over 35 at this point) seem to have an irrational attachment to phone calls, when texting or email would suffice or be better. This is just a manifestation of that mentality. If you encourage your kid to text you it&#x27;s much more likely they&#x27;ll communicate, largely because it can be done quickly and discreetly.<p>Given the problems I&#x27;ve heard about with app store purchases from parents in this target market there&#x27;s zero chance of this actually working, and I&#x27;d be surprised if any parent in the target group even believes it would work either.
crunchcaptainover 10 years ago
The developer must have hired a great P.R. company because yesterday our local TV news was covering it. Now it&#x27;s on HN!?!<p>Read the FAQ and you&#x27;ll get an idea of the brains (or lack thereof) behind this app: <a href="http://ignorenomoreapp.com/faq" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ignorenomoreapp.com&#x2F;faq</a><p>&quot;Q: My child ignored my instructions and selected “OK” to the pop-up request to “Disable Device Admin”. How do I restore Ignore No More on their phone?&quot;<p>&quot;A: I know, I know let me guess the child said, “It was an accident”. First you need to check to see if Ignore No More is still on their phone. If it is then that’s great news. All you have to do is select the device’s Settings icon&gt;Security&gt;Device (or Phone) Administrators where you will then see an empty box beside of Ignore No More Device Admin. Select the empty box; a pop-up will appear, select “Activate”. Ignore No More is now restored on the child’s phone. On the other hand, if the child deleted the app entirely from their phone you will need to download again from the app store.&quot;
exodustover 10 years ago
This app would put whatever rocky relationship I had with my mother on even rockier ground.<p>The biggest flaw is that the child may not be ignoring the parent, but simply can&#x27;t call at that time. Perhaps the kid&#x27;s phone is in their bag or they are in class or something.<p>To lock the kid&#x27;s phone based on an assumption of guilt is like punishing the kid for not eating his vegetables before dinner is served.
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rrrx3over 10 years ago
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, YOUNG MAN? WHY WERE YOU IGNORING MY CALLS?<p><i>checks GPS log, sees school</i><p><i>does child&#x27;s homework for him</i><p><i>applies to college for him</i><p><i>goes on job interviews for him</i>
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walterbellover 10 years ago
Ransomware improves parent-child communication?<p>Better: analytics dashboard on latency of response.<p>Suppression of emotional signals (response latency) is unlikely to improve communication and could lead to second-order consequences &quot;If you treat me like ___, I will behave like ___&quot;.
DoubleMaltover 10 years ago
I like these projects to get more children interested in hacking!
jacquesmover 10 years ago
Kids will have to explain to their parents how to install it.<p>Or show them how they removed it.
inglespover 10 years ago
Shouldn&#x27;t parenting be about trust?
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cpwrightover 10 years ago
Or you take their phone away when they don&#x27;t call you back; or ground them. It seems to me that having an enforced version of that won&#x27;t actually promote responsible behavior as much as more traditional punishments.
taternutsover 10 years ago
This is ridiculous - really more like &quot;Teach your child how to jailbreak his device&quot;. I know this holds true of me, but I truly can&#x27;t stand talking on the phone with anyone - I much prefer just a simple text message. My parents&#x2F;baby-boomers can&#x27;t stand this, in my experience - for some reason they need the actual call. I think this would be more effective if it unlocked after a text message back.
hluskaover 10 years ago
It&#x27;s very rare that an app inspires as much rage in me as this one has. I&#x27;m not sure if it is the over the top self praising tone of the FAQ, or the fact that this will be such an amazing tool for abusive parents, or the fact that this is a great way to condition children to obey unconditionally, but seriously, this app makes me irrationally angry.<p>Some parents are assholes. Some kids have other things going on and don&#x27;t need a helicopter constantly hovering over top of them. And some media outlets need to learn to be critical of the crap that they flog.<p>Even if the FAQ included some child abuse&#x2F;help lines, I&#x27;d be significantly less angry. But seriously, this app looks like a red flag for extraordinarily controlling parents. And, there is a bunch of research that indicates extremely controlling behaviour is a sign of abuse. What if, as an entire industry, we decide to always err on the side of protecting kids??<p>Sorry for the rant. I&#x27;ve edited this several times to tone things down, but this app makes me intensely angry. If there is any justice, the app store will remove this garbage.
anotherevanover 10 years ago
I often feel when reading discussions about parenting that posters should be required to list the number and ages of their children. If you&#x27;re spouting off about how terrible and awful this is, lack of trust, etc, etc, and you haven&#x27;t been there, your opinion on the matter has a value approaching zero to a stressed out parent.<p>That said, I don&#x27;t think this is the greatest of ideas, but I can see cases where it could be a useful tool in parenting. And it is a tool, not a solution that replaces an open dialogue with your kids. Grayclhn said it best[1]: &quot;Of course, a parent could also install an app like this as part of a long process of discussion and negotiation wherein the child repeatedly blows off commitments to check in, blows off even lenient curfews, and struggles to hold up his or her side of the agreement.&quot;<p>Agreed that it is something that is ripe for abuse and helicopter parenting.<p>(Parent of girl 15, boy 12.)<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8197401" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8197401</a>
ck2over 10 years ago
I find the negativity about this surprising.<p>I live in a low income area - you would wish many parents around here cared this much and would helicopter their kids. I fear many of them are doomed from the start.<p>I think this app is a last resort measure, not like a block on computer use but if the kid is being bad about something to get them to respond.
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steventhedevover 10 years ago
While it&#x27;s nice to see other applications using the Device Administrator&#x27;s API, I fail to see what advantage this provides over Google&#x27;s implementation [1].<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.google.com/android/devicemanager" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;android&#x2F;devicemanager</a>
xg15over 10 years ago
<i>Q: Why won’t the message “Ignore No More!” go away once my child has used the password to unlock their phone?<p>A: Don’t worry their phone is unlocked. “Ignore No More!” stays visible to your child to help you. The message is a constant reminder to them to answer your calls and texts or else you will lock their phone. If you don’t want to use this feature and want the message to go away, simply open up the parent My Household page and press “Unlock Phone” for that child. Once the child refreshes their screen the message will be gone.</i><p>If you market to helicopter parents, that&#x27;s one thing. If you market to parents who actively enjoy being mean to their children, you should maybe overthink your business model.
jasonkesterover 10 years ago
Language is weird, and it&#x27;s always interesting to see the way people spell things that they&#x27;ve only ever heard, often picking completely different words to construct sentences that sound kinda right but don&#x27;t actually make any sense with the words they&#x27;ve used (there&#x27;s a guy here who says &quot;properly&quot; whenever he means to say &quot;probably&quot; for instance).<p>This is the first time I&#x27;ve seen anybody substitute their own made up word (notta&#x27;) for nada though.
tux3over 10 years ago
Wow that&#x27;s disgusting.
tincoover 10 years ago
Looks great! one thing, you have a nice carousel going on, and maybe I&#x27;m a slow reader but I had to make it go back to the last slide three times before I finished reading it. Consider either making the carousel change slower or better yet, make the story vertical.
murbard2over 10 years ago
Another way to do it would be to stop offering a free phone plan, or free rent for that matter. What kind of self respect do you have if you&#x27;re letting a teenager whose lifestyle you&#x27;re subsidizing treat you like this?
rational-futureover 10 years ago
Hmmm, here&#x27;s a business idea - install the app on as many phones as you can (remote exploits, free apps in stores) and demand monthly payments to keep them unlocked.
datamindedover 10 years ago
The solution to poor parenting is not an app.
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michaelmiorover 10 years ago
I haven&#x27;t tried it, but isn&#x27;t this trivial to disable by just booting into safe mode and uninstalling the app?
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jpfieldingover 10 years ago
if you have this problem with your child, an app is not the solution. you have serious discipline problems.
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diminotenover 10 years ago
I should come out with an app that disables this app, and charge something like $5 for it.
lttlrckover 10 years ago
Somewhat surprising there is no Facebook backlash yet... this is a horrible product.
StavrosKover 10 years ago
Hah, the FAQ reads like you&#x27;re trying to keep pests out of your house.
ck2over 10 years ago
Very very clever. Grew up before mobile phones existed so it is hard to relate but I guess if a kid has to have a phone, this helps.<p>Of course nothing stops the kid from lying to their parents which I guess 99% of all kids do.