Apple to unveil software that helps curb iPhone addiction
Apple engineers have been working on an initiative dubbed Digital Health, a series of tools to help users monitor how much time they spend on their devices and inside of certain applications.
On Monday, Apple Inc. executives will take the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose to lay out the iPhone maker’s software strategy for the next year and tease future hardware ambitions.
Each year when it upgrades the operating systems that power the iPhone and iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, the company touts enhancements that tie people ever closer to their devices and keep them engrossed in the latest apps and games.
This year, the company will highlight the opposite: using gadgets less.
Apple engineers have been working on an initiative dubbed Digital Health, a series of tools to help users monitor how much time they spend on their devices and inside of certain applications. These details will be bundled into a menu inside of the Settings app in iOS 12, the likely name of Apple’s refreshed mobile operating system, according to people familiar with the plans.
“We need to have tools and data to allow us to understand how we consume digital media,” Tony Fadell, a former senior Apple executive who worked on the original iPhone and iPod, said in a recent interview. “We need to get finer-grain language and start to understand that an iPhone is just a refrigerator, it’s not the addiction.”