What is the Alternative to Bark for iPhones?
On iPhones, there are better alternatives for parents to track their child's location, monitor activity, and block apps and websites.
If you’re a parent who’s trying to set up restrictions on a child’s iPhone, you might have considered an app like Bark to monitor your child’s location, text messages, or social media activity. Bark does have these features, but many parents realize that on iPhones, it’s not very straightforward to set up monitoring compared to Android smartphones. Fortunately, there is a reliable approach to Bark that allows parents to monitor activity on their child’s iPhone (in such a way that it can’t be disabled without help from the parent) and keep track of their child’s location.
On iPhones, parents choose Bark for two main reasons: location tracking and message monitoring (especially, text messages and social media activity).
However, on iPhones, both of these features tend to be difficult to set up, and require a lot of constant attention or adjustment from parents. In the long run, it’s often better for parents to consider alternatives, like Apple Family Sharing for location tracking, or screenshot monitoring to supervise text message and social media activity.
Consider Apple Family instead of Bark for Location Sharing on iPhones
Location tracking is one of the main reasons why parents choose Bark in the first place, but on iPhones, Apple has made multiple updates to Apple Family Sharing that now allow parents to view their child’s activity. Apple Family Sharing is free, but it comes with the downside that parents and children often need their own Apple devices (iPhones, iPads, or Mac computers).
We recommend parents check out our dedicated guide for enforcing location sharing on iPhones for a full walkthrough, step-by-step. There is a specific process that parents need to follow on both their own and their child’s devices to fully track location activity.
Bark requires location permissions on your child’s iPhone, but this often requires parents to set up Screen Time or Apple Family Sharing anyway to prevent changes to these permissions.
Alternatives to Bark that monitor Text Messages and Social Media on iPhones
Bark can monitor text messages and some social media activity, but it’s tedious for parents to set up. The app uses two main approaches for each of these kinds of activity:
- To monitor text messages, Bark requires parents to install an application on a computer
- For each app or social media app you’d like to monitor, parents need to give Bark their child’s account credentials. For example, to monitor TikTok, you would need to give Bark your child’s TikTok account username and password.
We recommend alternatives to Bark if you’d like to monitor text messages on a child’s iPhone instead, especially if you'd like to also manage your child's contacts. Apps like LivingRoom for Families are significantly easier to set up and use, and parents can review all activity on a child’s iPhone.
A more comprehensive approach to monitoring social media on your child’s iPhone is to use screenshot monitoring instead. Screenshot monitoring captures all app activity, including social media and text messages. It can even be used to monitor disappearing messages on apps like Snapchat, which Bark isn’t able to capture reliably.
Monitor Full App Activity on iPhones and iPads with the LivingRoom App for Families
Apps like LivingRoom for Families use screenshot monitoring on iPhones to fully capture app activity, including text messages in iMessage, disappearing or private messages on social media, and even web browsing activity on Safari and other web browsers. Once set up on an iPhone, your child can’t disable the LivingRoom app and will need your help to remove it.
To review activity, parents can review screenshots by logging into their account on the LivingRoom dashboard.
LivingRoom also goes a step further and preemptively detects nudity on your child’s iPhone; parents will see a notification if something was detected, and the internet will be automatically disabled on your child’s device to prevent any further browsing. The detection works on any app, including the Photos app, social media, and web browsers.
See our YouTube video for more information about how this works, and why it’s a powerful tool for parents:
