Child is the jewel of parent's heart, and even when those little devils are so good in driving you mad with their fake tears and loud scream to beg for something, sometimes you simply just can't say no in the end. And ever since the price of smartphones has decline rapidly, this situation has created a certain predicament for parents.
Kids can easily access porn, violent, and vulgar contents on the internet with a smarpthone in their little innocent hands. So parents need to do what's needed to be done, when they handed down a smartphone, either it's a brand new or old, to their children.
Not many parents have know that there's parental control feature inside today's savvy smartphones, which they can use to protect their kids from malicious contents on the internet.
Jamie Lendino from PC Mag has gathered around steps on how to set the parental control feature in these 4 popular smartphones, he grouped them by the wireless carriers:
Apple iPhone 3G (AT&T): On the iPhone, go to Settings | General | Restrictions. Click Enable Restrictions, and choose a four-digit passcode, which you'll need to enter twice to confirm. From there, you can set limits on access to explicit content on iTunes, Safari, and YouTube, and allow or disable third-party-app installation.
BlackBerry Curve 8330, BlackBerry Storm (Verizon): As of August 2008, Verizon customers can set their kids' phones to filter content, block certain numbers, and restrict usage—but only for an extra cost, unfortunately. The carrier offers Usage Controls, an online service that lets parents monitor voice and data usage thresholds. It's available for $4.99 per month for each line.
Samsung Instinct (Sprint): Sprint offers several levels of parental control. Some controls can be set from the individual handset—for example, Wireless Web Access can be set so Internet access is restricted for children and teens under 17; this is in the My Account section on the phone.
T-Mobile Sidekick, T-Mobile G1 (T-Mobile): Back in July 2008, T-Mobile introduced its Family Allowances program, which regulates how much each child in the household can use the phone per month. You can set limits on voice minutes, text messages, and content purchases (the usual games, ringtones, and wallpaper) via the company's online account management. The service costs $2 per month, and paying a single fee works for all numbers on the account—perfect for all the Sidekick users in the house.
I've only taken the essential steps from Jamie's article, if you're interested to read the whole instructions then head on to this link.