Apple Moves To Stop Kids Racking Up iTunes Bills 232
Xacid writes "Apple Inc. has changed how purchases inside iPhone and iPad games are authorized after customers complained that their kids were racking up hundreds of dollars worth of charges. The issue was that after a user entered his or her iTunes password on a device, the device didn't prompt for the password again for 15 minutes. Any purchases, whether in the iTunes store or inside kid-friendly games such as 'The Smurf's Village,' went through without a new password prompt. This meant that parents who handed over their iPhones or iPads to their kids were sometimes shocked by large purchases of 'Smurfberries' and other virtual bling."
Sounds like... (Score:3, Insightful)
... it's a parenting problem.
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To shelter a kid from the real world where people -are- p
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Yeah, but the games in question are clearly aimed at fairly young children, who don't have a great concept of numbers, let alone money [as in, 2-5 year olds]. The company that made them had things like a wheelbarrow of smurfberries for $99.00. To contrast this, they also make freemium games for adults, with in-app purchases maxing out at under $5 each.
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So, your kids are "scammers" now?
And it sounds like this is exactly what Apple are doing - ensuring that purchases are confirmed with a password, even if the "15 minute convenience grace" of entering your password is still in effect, sort of like how sudo escalates for a small amount of time, so you can execute a few commands before you need to authenticate again.
(although I haven't sudo'ed [sudone?] for a while, so I might be misremembering, and for the sake of a slashdot comment I'm not invoking root just
Sort of... (Score:2)
How would a kid know that answering 'yes' to "do you want some smurfberries?" is going to cost money?
The problem will most likely go away once the parent has figured out that the shiny toy they put in their kid's hands has hidden "spend money" buttons in it. Once bitten, etc.
The real blame here is on the people who set up an automatic billing system which allows the parents to get bitten even once, ie. Apple. All purchases should require a password.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying that it's a parenting problem does not absolve Apple of a practical need to deal with it.
Yes, my child purchasing things without asking due to a poorly designed authentication mechanism (use case analysis, anyone) is proximately my problem. I must solve that problem.
I can solve that problem in many ways:
1. I can manually toggle in app purchasing, and hope that I never forget
2. I can teach my child to never ever push a button when they see that funny $ without talking to a parent, and hope that they perfectly comply
3. I can call Apple out on its bonehead use case analysis. The trite 'he who has the gold makes the rules' also applies to collections of customers. Make customers happy, make money. Make customers unhappy, make less money.
4. etc.
Most importantly, I can engage in defense in depth by pursuing solutions at the same time. Trolls bleat "sounds like a parenting problem," and parents demanding that a braindead authentication mechanism change get ridiculed because these self-aggrandizing paragons of foresight cannot conceive a world in which others would do anything other than 'blame Apple.' An attempt to get Apple to improve the product couldn't possibly be made by people who believe that it's ultimately their responsibility to deal with the problem. After all, everybody except for you and the rest of the Illuminati are "sheeple."
House fire? Sounds like a homeowner problem to me. House fire caused by an Easy Bake oven? Yeah, that's a homeowner problem too. You should have been handcuffed to your kid at all times, or else taken the lightbulb out. After all, nobody making an Easy Bake over could foresee that a child would leave something in it for hours, and even if they could, we simply don't care about the manufacturer's ability to fix the risk for $2/unit. Don't complain about the fire risk (fix it yourself), don't call the fire department (put it our yourself), and for heaven's sake don't create a moral hazard by allowing people to take insurance out against fire (enablers, every one).
Your ultra-libertarian utopia is nothing more than a warmed over Hobbesian distopia. I'll do you one better: Adam Smith's utopia. If the value of the effort required for Apple to mitigate this in-game purchase problem is substantially less than the value of all of parents' collective efforts to control their kiddies' in-game purchases, then Apple will (as it has) volunteer some 'responsibility'. Why? Because they can generate greater value, gain sales, and make money doing it. They know that because parents have complained and they can see the value proposition. Make the product that your customers want, solve the problems that your customers have, and keep your customer happy. And that last part most definitely "sounds like an Apple problem."
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Spoken like a non-parent.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a parent, if my daughter did this (and I would be shocked if she did), I would make damn sure sufficient wrath descended upon her that she'd never do it again. Firstly, for stealing from her father, and secondly, for spending money on stupid shit.
If your kids don't think their actions have consequences, you're doing it wrong. Your job isn't to insulate them from the world, it's just to put safety wheels on it until they can ride it safely.
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How is this not a safety-wheel?
Yeah, racking up a $1500 cell phone bill should be sufficient to teach your kid about the consequences of it unless he's a moron, but it's a pretty expensive lesson to even happen once.
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$1500 is comically extreme.
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Not when you can rack up $90 in one go, buying "1500 FarmVille Credits" and the like.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Blame the victim much? You really don't understand the issue here. How about explaining scams and cons to your daughter, maybe explain that imaginary smurfberries cost real money, that a single ring tone costs $4.99 a month, and various other absurdities of online commerce. What, you think these kids are knowingly racking up that amount of debt? Yeah, then I've got a bridge to sell you, sucker.
What makes you think this is about kids not understanding the consequences of their actions, rather than online scams and shady business practices? I despise smugly superior people who take the phrase "let the buyer beware" to mean "any con against an unaware buyer is fair game." Stop blaming the victim. Stop criticizing legitimate efforts by businesses to address the concerns of their customers. It's almost as if you want these people to lose money, so you can feel superior to them. Do you perhaps feel that social Darwinism will not weed out the "inferior" people if we protect them from human predators? Maybe you think the predators, being stronger, should have more rights than the weak and stupid? I don't know. I really can't even fathom a mindset like yours.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the amount of gray area scams out there are LIMITLESS.
You must learn how to keep an eye out for this stuff, and the best time to really learn is when you're a poor kid.
You don't do your kids any favors by sending them out the door wrapped head to toe in pillows.
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Right, because giving parents a tool to combat unauthorized purchases is the equivalent of sending your kid out into the world wrapped in a pillow.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a parent, if my son were young enough again to be interested in Smurfberries, I'd likely figure that he didn't know what he was doing; also, punishing a child for something he or she doesn't understand is stupid and unfair. I also have no idea how to teach a child that young that touching buttons on a phone is (a) stealing money, or (b) spending money (or, for that matter, that Smurfberries are stupid).
My son was aware that actions have consequences from an early age, but when he was four he really wasn't good at predicting those consequences, particularly in an environment set up to scam him. I was a lot older than that before I realized that money was more than pieces of metal and paper, but also those numbers in the bank books.
Consequently, some sort of safety wheel to make sure they don't inadvertantly spend large amounts of money strikes me as a real good idea.
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And why are you assuming the kids did this maliciously, rather than by mistake? They've always played the game without being able to buy stuff, and suddenly they can buy stuff, and they don't realize they are spending real money because they have never been able to do so before?
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If your kids don't think their actions have consequences, you're doing it wrong.
If you don't think it should be expected that children will make mistakes, you're doing it wrong. Given that children will make mistakes, it seems like a good idea for Apple to help reduce the negative impact of some easy-to-make mistakes.
After all, what's better, to make it easy for a child to unknowingly (or even knowingly) make $1,500 in in app purchases, and just punish them after the fact for it, or make it harder to make that mistake in the first place? It's not like children are going to comprehend t
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Spoken like a non-parent.
Man, I wish I hadn't used up all of my mod points yesterday.
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So parents might "work the problem out" by not letting exposing their kids to Apple services/devices (and the Reality Distortion Field) at such a tender and easily influenced age.
Apple knows that, that's why they are fixing the problem. It's clear they don't want to be a "18 rated" device or even a "PG" one either
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... Apple is offering a technical solution to the problem.
Or another way of putting it is that Apple are deliberating over months the 'problem' of kids having full access to their parents credit cards for any itunes purchases for 15 minutes after their parents giving them a gift. I know all the fanboys are lining up to blame the parents for being stupid enough to pay for something for their children without reading slashdot first, personally their response makes me feel they are far more stupid only for trusting Apple with their credit cards in the first place.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's modern parenting for you... plop your kid in front of the TV (in their bed room, of course), or Wii, or iPad, or whatever other gadget, and get them out of your hair for a couple hours after work until they pass out, exhausted, from extensive video screen stimulation.
Really? You think that's how this stuff happens?
I will hand my young son my phone with the Talking Tomcat "ca-caty!" application when I have to wait in a long checkout/service/wahtever line, lest I be holding a screaming toddler who -- like any 2.5-year-old -- prefers to run around the store rather than stand still for 10 minutes.
However, there is a link in the app to download extra features and animals, and even at his age, he can access it quite easily. I can't imagine what kind of charges I would have racked up in the thirty seconds I spend paying for groceries or arguing with Customer Service if my Android phone didn't require extra authorization before making purchases.
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Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
No its not, its providing an ALTERNATIVE to what might become bad behavior.
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No its not, its providing an ALTERNATIVE to what might become bad behavior.
Exactly. Has the GP ever tried to keep a child under three quiet and calm in a new and intriguing environment for any length of time? This allows my son to indulge his curiosity without bringing up the temper-tantrum/punishment cycle. He knows this, to a point. When we get into situations like this, he is learning to, rather than getting too fussy, ask for the phone and the talking cat application.
On top of that, my son is on the autism spectrum. Receiving a reward at home, maybe an hour or so later,
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On top of that, my son is on the autism spectrum. Receiving a reward at home, maybe an hour or so later, is well beyond his present understanding.
You should have mentioned that in the first place. Yes, you can keep a child quiet and calm in a new and intriguing environment without handing them some device like an iPod. Parents have done it for years. You have a special circumstance where you've found an approach that works that might honestly be ill-advised for others.
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That approach only starts working after a certain age. It doesn't work at 2.5 years old. Plus if you distract the kid before he starts trying to set the store on fire, you're not rewarding bad behavior, you're preventing it. Most children of that age can no more fail to cause trouble if you're not paying attention to him than he can learn to juggle - a certain amount of development is required.
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Of course, kids would benefit greatly from spending ALL their time with parents.
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That's modern parenting for you... plop your kid in front of the TV (in their bed room, of course), or Wii, or iPad, or whatever other gadget, and get them out of your hair for a couple hours after work until they pass out, exhausted, from extensive video screen stimulation.
So if the kid is doing an activity for a couple hours unattended the parents are rubbish at parenting?
The must completely helicopter the child, and be orbiting within 3 feet at all times, continually interacting from the moment the child
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In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
...parents left cookies on the table and were shocked to find that their children ate them when they weren't looking.
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"This make Cookie Monster very sad!'
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...parents left cookies on the table and were shocked to find that their children ate them when they weren't looking.
Don't worry, citizens! Your elected officials are on the case! Legislation is being introduced requiring safety locks on all cookie jars sold in the United States. Rumor has it that an Anti-Cookie-Trafficking Agreement is also in the works that would extend these protections around the world!
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To be fair, it's more like unlocking the cubboard, taking some cookies out for the kids, relocking it, and then finding our your kids ransacked it because the relocking takes 15 minutes to take effect.
At least, that's how I imagine parents would perceive it.
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So, what you mean is, that it's more like unlocking the cupboard, taking some cookies out for the kids, leaving the cupboard open with the assumption that it eventually locks itself back, and then finding your kids ransacked it because you didn't care enough to read the manual which states that re-locking takes 15 minutes to take effect.
The fact that you yourself have noticed that you are able to take more than one cookie at a time for a short time after unlocking it did not cross your mind either.
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Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, it isn't mentioned anywhere in the pamphlet you receive with the iPhone or iPod, its buried within the iTunes website terms-and-conditions (at least last time I checked). If there were a warning label you had to pull-off each new iDevice I'd be right there with you, but you really have to look for it to find the iTunes lockout timeout (at least you did before this story broke).
That being said I'm generally not a believer of ignorance-as-a-defense, but I can certainly see why Apple would change this behavior and why the FTC would look into it.
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...parents left cookies on the table and were shocked to find that their children ate them when they weren't looking.
... and were quite relieved that the kids stopped once the jar was empty (rather than Nabisco coming to "helpfully" refill it, again and again, and billing the parents for this wonderful service...)
Careful... (Score:2)
This is EXACTLY what lead to the big die-off of the dinosaurs.
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Exactly. I've been saying that iProducts are weapons of mass extinction events for years, but people just wouldn't listen.
No... The dinosaurs had less sampled, repetitive and mind-numbing music, so their brains woke up and started to function.
The first thing they did was realize they didn't get along with each other.
The second thing they did was become polarized politically.
The third thing they did was elect that stupid diplodocus from Gondwanaland as President.
The forth thing they did was a huge military build up.
The fifth thing they did was use it against themselves.
Meanwhile, the early mammals saw this coming and hid in th
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Meanwhile, the early mammals saw this coming and hid in their burrows until it was all over.
A time-honored, deeply cherished survival technique still used by the most intelligent descendants of those same mammals, in spite of vicious and unprovoked mockery.
Yes, that's right. Living in Mom's basement is a mark of extremely advanced evolution.
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But the EULA says they can't be!
Followup Story. (Score:3)
Apple iOS update blamed for 90% reduced revenue for small game developers.
40% of small game developers have gone out of business since this change.
BAD APPLE.
It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank god they wised up and put in a new password prompt for in-game purchases. Now all they have to do is sit back and wait for the complaints to come in that "my kids said 'hey what's the password?' and then I got hundreds of dollars of racked up charges." Never mind the fact that they have a KID'S GAME that includes paying for virtual nothingness. I guess Steve's new motto is "get them addicted early."
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You have to draw the line somewhere, but the whole notion that online retailers insist upon saving your credit information is absurd. Beyond the tendency to overspend, there's also the issue of all of a sudden you have to worry about somebody stealing the details and running up large bills with stolen credit card details.
Re:It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. The whole notion that it should be as easy as possible to spend money is rooted in the corporation's desire for us to not think twice about it.
Back when Blockbuster was relevant, (and gamefly didn't exist) they had an all-you-can-rent plan for games. The one requirement to signing up was that you needed to use a genuine credit card, not a bank-backed credit/debit card but a genuine going-into-debt card. What's the difference? The real credit card won't stop you from spending beyond your limit; ergo they get their money no matter what even if you can't technically afford it.
Easy spending is an epidemic (in most western nations at least) just as bad as easy eating, and we just keep lining up to support the companies that are sucking us in.
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The one requirement to signing up was that you needed to use a genuine credit card, not a bank-backed credit/debit card but a genuine going-into-debt card. What's the difference? The real credit card won't stop you from spending beyond your limit; ergo they get their money no matter what even if you can't technically afford it.
The rental car companies have the exact same requirement: You must make the reservation with a credit card, although you can eventually pay the bill with a debit card. The reason was so they could put a hold on enough funds to cover the payment plus the damages if you totaled the car (note this is not the value of the entire car, but the limited "deductible" you agree to in the contract).
Very often, when they put a hold on this amount on a debit card, it pushed the underlying checking account into ov
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to draw the line somewhere, but the whole notion that online retailers insist upon saving your credit information is absurd. Beyond the tendency to overspend, there's also the issue of all of a sudden you have to worry about somebody stealing the details and running up large bills with stolen credit card details.
Retailers need to store credit cards to issue refunds on returns. After that time period, I think they should delete the info. In reality, it can be tricky to clean up all references to data.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they don't. They need the transaction id, nothing more.
I know, we do CC transactions all the time and never have a CC number longer than the time it takes for a web page to pass it off to authorize.net. We can still easily refund the transaction or adjust the value down if need be.
There are also methods for recurring billing that do basically the same thing, we get a reference ID, at the end of the billing period we send a 'bill these reference IDs for the price determined when the reference was setup' and they return a list of successful and unsuccessful transactions.
Authorize.NET handles all the work for us, allowing us to not be bound by all the rules of PCI and not having to worry so much about what happens if your DB gets hacked, we have no CC numbers for anyone to steal.
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Meh. You're talking about something that goes wrong about 0.001% of the time... and in cases of outright fraud, the consumer typically isn't even held responsible by their credit card issuer.
Here's a radical idea: how about if parents try applying some actual discipline? Before making online commerce less convenient for everyone else, can we try that and see if it works?
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Then don't give apple your CC number and buy gift cards, using cash, from retail stores instead.
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I wonder if there's a $1 fee for prompting for password in-game? That could balance things out for their books, royalty wise, wouldn't it? Of course, it's venal, but hey, who said they were saints anyway?
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Hey, those carts of virtual berries cost $100 (IIRC, even if it's $20 that's freaking insane!), and of course Apple won't do anything about it, since, hey, the Don gets a 30% cut!
Re:It's about time (Score:4, Funny)
o_o
"You found a treasure chest."
O_o
"It's a big SHINY treasure chest."
O_O
"It's probably full of really neat stuff!"
@_@
"Buy a key? Only $10. (Y/n)"
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Yeah, and now the kid's whining about wanting to see what's in the treasure chest... pretty fucking evil of the game-maker, but heh, look at FarmVille, the VC's love it! I can already see how the game won't be doable without using something inside that treasure chest.
Maybe I should make a clone of that "Am I rich?" app that cost $1000-1, call it "diamond collector" and let the users collect 200 dollar images of colored stones, which are purchasable within a 2-week window only. Get it now to complete your co
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man, you have a business plan that could work, that is more than most of those apps startups.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
if I had it to design myself, I'd make it so that apps could do in-game purchases that would require a call to the store API. That would pause the game and pop up a purchase area that didn't look like the game, that required their password for access. Then within that area they could buy items. Then leave that area to return to the game. Then require the password next time they wanted to go there.
That would help create a division between the game and the store. Right now with completely in-game purchasing, the kids don't see the purchase as anything other than just another button to click in the game. It needs to have a completely different, consistent look to it, that says "you are not in the game right now, you are in the STORE, spending REAL MONEY".
Another alternate implementation could be to just make such an area to "fund" the game. Then the game devs could implement their own in-game experience store, but that would draw on the funds transferred from the store. That would allow the parents to say "ok Timmy I've put $10 into your Smurfs store, spend it wisely!" That would actually be a good experience for the kids... they need to learn the value of money. It would also relieve the parents of having to mess with the store every time their kid wanted to buy their pet grasshopper a different color of shoes for a quarter etc.
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I'm probably an asshole, but any kids I end up having will be enjoying buying left and right and up and down on their etch-a-sketch, not buying virtual food for their cartoon friends.
some games have fake in game money and there shoul (Score:2)
some games have fake in game money and there should be a SYSTEM GUI for buying stuff with REAL money or points that cost real money.
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The Wii has a similar system for their online content. You buy credits with real money, then you use those credits to buy games and extra content.
Not really a parenting issue... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not really a parenting issue... (Score:5, Informative)
They already have that kind of thing, and even the concept of giving an allowance to a kid's iTunes account.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2105 [apple.com]
The "problem" arises here when the parent hands their own iOS device with their own account to the kid within epsilon of using the account themselves (eg. right after they installed a game). If the kids really had their own iOS devices and iTunes accounts to begin with, the problems aren't the same.
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I really don't see how this is much of a parenting issue.
Maybe it's because I'm older than you, but I was taught rather sternly not to mess with the phone because of the risk of long-distance charges being added. Seems like a better solution than bitching to the phone company about it.
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And really, by discouraging kids from playing with technology it breeds them into people who are paranoid about techn
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I think that in this case what Apple did was perfectly reasonable. It was simple to implement and it makes it a bit more secure. The underlying issue, though, is that you cannot child-proof the world.
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This is good for everyone. I remember back in the non smartphone days everyone always being scared of the phone because it might charge you for doing something. The people who wouldn't read text messages because they thought it would cost them money (when in fact it already had just due to the fact that you received it), not wanting to change a ringtone, etc. etc. And the thing was, it was based in truth. You press the center button on a non AT&T smartphone and boom your on the internet. Racking up per
Re:Not really a parenting issue... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't see how this is much of a parenting issue. ... a kid playing a game might not fully realize that this is going to be charged real money.
Sounds TOTALLY like a parenting issue to me.
See those candies in the store? Not the store's job to tell the kid they need real money to buy them.
If you haven't taught your kids to appreciate real money yet, then they shouldn't be in the position to spend real money without your supervision.
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If you haven't taught your kids to appreciate real money yet, then they shouldn't be in the position to spend real money without your supervision.
Which is exactly what this fixes. That kids can't spend real money without your permission. It is a technical issue. Apple has the capability to fix loopholes that allow kids to spend real money without their parents permission and they should fix them.
The problem in this super-connected age is that there are fewer and fewer ways that allow kids to explore 'real' technology without the risk of accidentally purchasing some DLC. Especially when its on a cell phone with an always-on internet connection.
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Ideally what Apple would do would be when you set up your device in iTunes, you can create a "gift card only" account on it that would only bill gift cards and wouldn't buy something without enough store credit. So kids could still download free apps and spend their gift cards on apps/DLC but without the fear of it charging their parent's credit card.
Grats, you've described the exact set up my son has for my old 3G ipod touch (the one with the incredible 45 minute battery life coincidentally right after IOS 4 upgrade). It was pretty trivial to set up.
Disadvantage is when you go to the store and see those giant racks of gift cards, he always wants to buy an itunes gift card. I suppose its healthier that fast food gift cards.
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\\
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Its possible something has changed, I did that about half a year ago.
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The problem is that in-game purchases are too integrated into the game and it is feasible that a kid playing a game might not fully realize that this is going to be charged real money.
Not really, no.
As I recall from the last in-app purchase I made, it's actually a rather jarring break (intentionally so, I believe), and is not nearly as integrated as you claim. You have to go through a few rounds of pop-up notifications, each one saying that you WILL be charged, dictating the amount, and asking whether or not you are certain, not to mention that someone has to enter the password at least that first time (and now, every time). It's pretty far from One-Click type of transactions, and it bre
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No, if you have just entered your password (like, because you have just bought a new game and handed the iPhone to the kid) they'll not get any password prompt. It'll be a buy button and it buys, plain and simple. From what I gather that also resets your timeout so kids could play it for a long time racking up charges. It's far from obvious to a child that it's real money and not just fake money - I don't use real dollars when I "buy" something in Monopoly...
Before all you ABA haters get in a tissy... (Score:5, Informative)
Step 1: Get Kid's iPod Touch/iPhone.
Step 2: Setting->General->Restrictions->Enable Restrictions. Remember the passcode.
Step 3: Setting->General->Restrictions->In App Purchases, TURN OFF.
.
That wasn't so hard now was it?
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Step 4: If you're not rich enough to afford giving an $800 device to each of your children, and have only your own, then say to kid "No you can't use my iPhone".
Step 5: On a long car journey where young kid needs distraction, repeat "No you can't use my iPhone".
Step 6: When young kid continues to whine, repeat "No you can't use my iPhone"
Step 7: When young kid asks why not, explain "Because I went to setting>general>restrictions and turned off the passcode memory"
Step 8: When young kid asks again why
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Remember the passcode??
Remember the current demographic of slashdot readers are the ones currently suffering from short-term memory loss. But we prefer the term "information overload".
No, THIS is how you do it: (Score:3)
This is Parenting 101, whether it is conch shells, cocoa beans, pieces of eight or virtual dollars. Teach them to be mature humans, not depend on technology to babysit them.
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Show of hands... (Score:2)
Accountability (Score:3, Interesting)
What ever happened to parents holding their children, and themselves for that matter, accountable for their actions. In any child of mine purchased anything online without my permission I would make them work to pay the charges. Maybe it will teach the children the value of money. Maybe it will also teach parents to log out of iTunes before handing the phone over to someone else. In my mind this is no different than logging into one's bank account and the letting a child play on the computer without logging out.
The parents were held accountable (Score:2)
The parents were held accountable because they had to pay off their credit cards. There's your accountability right there. From there, it's up to the parents to figure out what to do beyond that.
Parents aren't perfect and they have to learn. Yes this is a mistake, and it's good that this is out in the media so that parents can learn from others who made this mistake. It's easy to armchair quarterback parents after making a mistake. I find people who do that a lot either have no kids, or have the delusi
Here's an idea... (Score:2)
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Oh you're right, clearly this is Apple's fault.
Those darn Smurfberries... (Score:2)
Cereal (Score:2)
Questions and Answers (Score:3)
Who was banned from "Saturday Night Live" because he lost a telephone poll?
a. John Belushi
b. Dan Akroyd
c. Chevy Chase
d. Andy Kaufman
Mork was from the planet
a. Ork.
b. Vulcan.
c. Krypton.
d. Pluto.
A nehru jacket is
a. made from tanned nehru hides.
b. out of date.
c. a Middle Eastern prophylactic.
d. around a car's radiator.
If a physician were stranded on a desert island with Bo Derek, he would probably
a. build a boat.
b. take two aspirins.
c. overcharge her.
d. thank God.
More here [allowe.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry D:
what happened to good 'ol fashioned punishment? (Score:2, Insightful)
Spending accounts? (Score:2)
We gave out kids debit cards that have just a certain amount on them. They are very much like debit-based gift cards, except these have their name on them and act like a bank debit card. We can put as little or as much as they want on those cards. There are no overdrafts on these cards, however. If they reach 0 or a transaction would go negative, the transaction is declined and nothing pulls from our main account. They use those on iTunes.
Of course, some kids are too young for that perhaps... so do som
Re: (Score:2)
Surely you must be new here. If there were spending limit triggers, then the addicts, er, "customers" might not spend as much! The goal here is to let the kids spend as much as they want, but with more explicit clearance from the parents, as in: "I promise I just want to buy one!" ding. ding ding. dingdingdingdingding. "wow buying 50 was easy!"