Monday, July 22, 2024

Shabbat Mode (iOS)

Do you wish you could turn off social media during Shabbat? Here's how I did it on my iOS devices:

1. Go to Settings → Screen Time; scroll to the bottom and turn on Share Across Devices; do this on all your devices before you set up your allowed-apps list.


2. In Settings Screen Time, under Limit, tap Always Allowed and add the apps you will allow to run during Shabbat. I'm including my list as a guide/reference: Phone, Messages, FaceTime, Maps, App Store, Authenticator, Blink, Boston Globe, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Docs, Drive, Find Devices, Find Items, Find People, Fitbit, Flo by Moen, Google Translate, Kindle, Lowell Sun e-Edition, Merlin Bird ID, Music, New Hampshire Union Leader, Notes, NYTimes, Overcast, Photos, Podcasts, Reminders, Sefaria, Sheets, Strava, Tasks, Venmo, Voice Memos, Wash Post, Weather, Workout, YouTube.


3. In Settings Screen Time, under Limit, tap Downtime. Tap Customize Days. Turn all days off. Then turn on Friday from 6-ish pm to 12 am and Saturday from 12 am to 9-ish pm. Again, this is just an example.


You'll still be able to run apps you forgot to include, but to me it felt much nicer not having to press that button. Go back to Settings and add them.


One thing I didn't figure out was how best to use the browser. There were a couple times I needed to look something up, and I would have preferred white-listing certain sites to pressing the override button. Let me know if you know a good way to do this.