Last updated May 5, 2026
Opal is the largest app utilizing the Screen Time API, consistently ranking among the top 30 grossing productivity apps in the U.S. since its release in 2022, with over 10,000,000 installs and averaging 1M Daily Active Users. These issues/requests are ordered by priority.
We are great fans of Apple, and we are truly grateful that the Apple engineering team built and made available Screen Time API. This API powers the Opal app and many other great apps, all with the ultimate goal of helping billions of people focus better. In the spirit of collaboration to make the API better for everyone to use, and to make Opal better for our community, we have compiled a list of issues we have encountered and already reported to Apple.
Alec, Peter, Julien, Thibaud, Ugo, Anton, Konrad, Matt and Kenneth (ceo) from Opal.
Status: ⛔️ Ongoing
Radar: FB22710663 Open Date: 5 May 2026
We are super excited about the new capabilities of the new API introduced with iOS 26.4 (FamilyActivityData API), however we are currently unable to use it outside of the European Union. Our ask: Make FamilyActivityData API available globally.
We believe this API can unlock significant opportunities for Opal's iPhone users worldwide (1M+ Daily Active Users), notably:
Allow Middle Schools and High Schools globally to restricts a set list of apps on student devices while in school - and students keep their keep phones, tablets and laptops. This is the #1 request we are receiving from dozens of schools in the US opalapp.com/for-schools. Over the past months, we’ve launched Opal for Schools, powered by Apple’s Screen Time API, as official school-wide phone policy at : Harvard-Westlake School (top 15 in US) Trevor Day School (Top 10 in NY) Berkeley Prep School (Top in Tampa) The Loomis Chaffee School (Top 25 in US) Colorado Academy (Top in Colorado) Catlin Gabel School (Top in Oregon) Schools face increasing pressure as many states move toward strict phone bans. At the same time, research suggests that highly restrictive approaches can create unintended “binge-and-purge” dynamics outside school hours.
Opal offers a different model: one that combines school-level visibility with student skill-building. Schools receive structured oversight and real-time data through an admin dashboard, while students build the long-term skill of digital self-regulation. Parents benefit as well, knowing their children remain reachable throughout the day.
Across our deployments: Average student screen time is 3h49m (including weekends) ~72% of students continue using Opal outside required school hours Opal has 1M+ daily active users globally, including ~250,000 teenagers daily who choose to use the app because of the difference it makes in their lives
Status: Ongoing ⚠️
Radar: No radar created as no logs from consistently replicated steps.
Forum link: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/809410