The issue of ensuring kids safety online is today on the front burner for many parents. It's not surprising as over 90% of minors in the US own or have access to Internet-enabled handheld devices. As a result, children in average spend 9 hours a day on digital media, according to the research by Common Sense Media. Out of this mind-boggling amount of time, over 5 hours relate to the Internet-associated activities. Well, if you were – or you already are – a parent, would you allow your underage kid hang out no one knows where with no one knows who doing no one knows what for 5 hours every day? Probably, no. Here we come to a paradox because only less than 1/3 of American parents use at least some kind of monitoring software (including device's built-in parental controls) to keep tabs on their children's digital activity. The thing is, modern-day kids and teens oftentimes are way more tech-savvy than their old folks and can easily go round standard protection features or limitations. Snooping and checking child's device by no means always can help as the data can be already deleted. That's why reliable parental monitoring and control apps are increasingly gaining popularity among parents who realize the high threat level of unfettered Internet use.
One of such supervising tools is Pumpic – a comprehensive mobile app designed especially for ethical children monitoring. It provides parents with a broad range of insights into kids' online and offline activities. Thus, the app helps to spot early signs of dangers like cyberbullying, sexting, predators' attacks, etc. Hence, parents are enabled to take action to avert the threat or at least reduce the damage if something wrong had already happened.
Solutions and Features
Pumpic app works on iOS and Android mobile devices. Because of fundamental differences between these operational systems, Pumpic designers embraced various approaches to developing monitoring solutions for each of them.
iOS (iCloud) Monitoring Solution
For starters, let's take iOS devices, which are immensely popular among teenagers. The philosophy of comfortable usage of Apple devices is built around the iCloud. That's why Pumpic iOS Monitoring Solution (compatible with iOS 6.0-10+) operates by retrieving data from the iCloud account linked to the target iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. This concept allows avoiding the necessity of jailbreaking the device you wish to track and installing the app on it. All you need to start monitoring is the target Apple ID and password; even the two-factor authentication and two-step verification can be outmaneuvered.
Developers claim that you can set up iCloud monitoring without touching the target device. Maybe, under some ideal circumstances, it's possible. But in the real world, you will need a brief physical access to the target device to check and adjust iCloud/backup settings. As a result, you're enabled to utilize up to 11 monitoring features that let you keep tabs on communications (SMS/MMS, calls, instant messengers), photos, Internet browsing activity, location and stuff like contacts, notes, calendar.
SMS section of the web-based Control Panel (iOS Solution)
Location section of the web-based Control Panel (iOS Solution)
Pumpic cost - iOS (iCloud) Monitoring Solution
- $142.80 / 2 years ($5.95 / month)
- $107.40 / year ($8.95 / month)
- $77.70 / 6 months ($12.95 / month)
- $29.95 / 1 month
Overall, for iOS, Pumpic offers a decent monitoring functionality with the minimum technical hassle.
Android Monitoring Solution
Pumpic Android Monitoring Solution (compatible with Android 2.2-6+) is radically different. First and foremost, you must install the visible app on the target device. Correspondingly, you'll need to have physical access to the phone or tablet for quite some time. At that, you should decide on whether rooting or not the device you're going to monitor. Actually, a quite broad selection of features is available without root; but if you want to pay closer attention to checking on kid's social media activity, rooting is highly advisable.
There are two subscriptions for Android users – Basic and Premium. They differ by the number of monitoring features: it's 15 for the Basic and 26 for the Premium. Viewing and blocking calls and SMS, checking on the browsing activity, emails, photos, contacts, location, application management – these functions are similar for both subscriptions. At the same time, Premium users can also track various instant messengers (WhatsApp, Kik, Viber, Skype, and text messages in Snapchat) plus Facebook and Instagram.
Emails section of the web-based Control Panel (Android Solution)
Device Settings section of the web-based Control Panel (Android Solution)
Pumpic cost - Android Monitoring Solution
Basic Subscription
- $63.99 / year ($5.33 / month)
- $43.99 / 6 months ($7.33 / month)
- $33.99 / 3 months ($11.33 / month)
- $23.99 / 1 month
Premium Subscription
- $83.99 / year ($6.99 / month)
- $53.99 / 6 months ($8.99 / month)
- $43.99 / 3 months ($14.66 / month)
- $33.99 / 1 month
In general, for Android adopters, Pumpic offers impressive functionality, especially if the device is rooted.
The best way to form up your opinion about either solution would be by checking out and browsing Pumpic's Demo page.
What's More?
If you visit the Demo page, you'll see that all collected information is displayed in the web-based Control Panel in respective sections. Yet, there are also free iOS and Android applications that allow viewing the most important data (like texts, calls, location, web history, etc.) on the go. These apps are not meant to replace the online dashboard; they are just additional tools that can make getting to the collected information a bit faster and handy.
Control Panel App interface
Verdict
Pumpic would be a plausible choice for those who realize digital perils of the modern world and hold the view that monitoring kids' device usage can help to protect them better. For such parents, Pumpic – be it for iOS or Android – will provide plenty of insights that enable grownups to act according to the revealed threat.