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Replacement phone for 13 yr old with good parental controls


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Old 29-08-2015, 19:27
John_Patrick
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Daughter has smashed her iphone 5s - long story but is definitely beyond repair.

We bought the 5s from a friend last year for £150 - well below what they are selling for now in shops, especially as it was in virtually unmarked condition.

As Mrs and myself both have iPhone 6's, we love the way we can use find my friends to locate her and the way that the restrictions work - you can disable access to app store, in app purchases, changing location settings etc.

Just in case im missing anything, is there any other phone that has as deep restrictions as IOS as well as easy location finding within Android, BB or Windows?

From what I see just now, another iPhone it is at circa £200 for second hand. Whatever she gets, its going to have to go into a more rugged case......
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Old 30-08-2015, 00:28
RAN Man
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Windows phone has similar if not better levels of restriction via Microsoft Family safety. They're a lot cheaper too! Link below.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/w.../family-safety
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Old 30-08-2015, 09:08
Lidtop2013
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But if you've got iPhones and she has another brand of phone will you still be able to track her using your phones? Might be something to look into.
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Old 30-08-2015, 09:25
mrprosser
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Google and Microsoft both released copies of 'Find my iPhone' so if a new phone gets lost it might be recoverable.
It is difficult (but not impossible) to transfer music purchases from iTunes to the other devices.
All her apps will be lost, any that have been purchased will not work on other devices and may need to be purchased again.
I'm not sure if there are any cross platform apps that mimic find my friends, and you will lose really useful things like iMessage and Facetime although there are alternatives such as What's App and Google hangouts, having tried them when my wife decided to get a Samsung, they are not quite as good.
Updating all her contacts will not be as easy as activaing a new iPhone and connecting to the cloud, You (or she) will need to download proprietary software and try and get it to interface with iTunes to recover all her contacts.... or sit and enter them all manually.
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Old 30-08-2015, 10:06
davethorp
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There are advantages to sticking with iPhone. Find my friends as you mention in the OP is one. Family sharing is another as any apps bought by one family member can be shared across the group. Apple Music's family plan is another if the family like their music and can be cheaper than individual music streaming plans although Apple Music is coming to android I believe.

As another poster has mentioned your daughter would have to buy copies of apps that she, or other members of the family, already own again were you to get her a device on a different OS. There would also be the process of bringing things like her contacts, calendar and possibly email over if these services are used on iCloud.

If at all possible, and it might not be given most girls that age cannot be without their phones for any period of time, I would strongly advise you to hang on for a week or so. New iPhones are on their way and this will change both the second hand market which will become saturated as people rush to upgrade and the new market as handsets that are higher priced now move into lower price points to make room for the 6S/6S Plus
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Old 30-08-2015, 10:19
de525ma
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Daughter has smashed her iphone 5s - long story but is definitely beyond repair.
How times have changed. When I was 15 (slightly older, granted, 13 year olds didn't get phones that young back then!), if I had broken my phone, I would be given an old one of my parents out of the drawer to borrow when I went out (usually something suitably mortifying like a Philips Diga or an Ericsson GA628). Then be told to wait until the next birthday/xmas or get a job and buy a new one myself if I couldn't wait.

Just get a really cheap Android phone. You can track her using the Google+ app.

As for controlling spending - just don't put your credit card number into it. Voila.

If you do want to put your credit card into Google Play (that's the Android app store), you can set it to prompt for your Google account password every time that the card is used. So you could do that too. That blocks all spending.
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Old 30-08-2015, 13:17
John_Patrick
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Thanks for the replies.

The difficulty is - there are no easy to use cross platform tracking apps, and to be honest, if it wasnt for our benifit of the ease of tracking, family sharing etc then yes, WinPhone or Android.

Looks like will have to stick to iPhones and take the hit on the additional cost - plus lifeproof case this time!
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Old 30-08-2015, 13:41
de525ma
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Thanks for the replies.

The difficulty is - there are no easy to use cross platform tracking apps,
Yes there are. Google+ app will do it, cross platform, as I said before.

Buy a lifetime case or tell her if she smashes it again, she can pay for it.
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Old 30-08-2015, 15:51
jchamier
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Looks like will have to stick to iPhones and take the hit on the additional cost - plus lifeproof case this time!
Find your local CEX, Cash Convertors, or GAME and see if they have any 4S or similar going cheap.
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Old 31-08-2015, 14:01
djfrancis
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For Android it would display to the user that the phone has been tracked by Android Device Manager even without installing the app https://www.google.co.uk/android/devicemanager on the plus side even displays the history from date and time and that again it does not display that the device is been tracked or history been checked etc.

WIndows Phones has a dot icon when is been tracked by location however the dot can be turned off under Location.

Apple as you know when the phone been tracked nothing tells you unless you have emails sync to the iPhone.
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Old 31-08-2015, 15:37
DevonBloke
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Apple music is worth sticking with Apple for in my opinion (assuming you/she listens to a lot of music).
£14.99 for me and my two daughters and we can all stream and/or download offline whatever we what whenever we want!!! Awesome to be honest. My Son will be on it soon too, same price!
Just looked back at past iTunes invoices to see how much the two girls were requesting tracks (via Apple family sharing) pre Apple music and was rather shocked to learn I was spending about £25 per month between them. They are both sensible so didn't do too much but it soon adds up to quite a lot.
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Old 31-08-2015, 17:25
TelevisionUser
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Find your local CEX, Cash Convertors, or GAME and see if they have any 4S or similar going cheap.
There are also some reasonable deals out there in respect of the iPhone 5C (apparently to be discontinued) so it's worth checking online.
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Old 31-08-2015, 17:49
jchamier
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There are also some reasonable deals out there in respect of the iPhone 5C (apparently to be discontinued) so it's worth checking online.
Yes, given its only been available in 8gb storage for the past year, the 5c is probably going to be dropped, and so should be cheaper (or maybe after the 9th Sept !).
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