How To Avoid Handing Your Tot A Blank Check Made Out To Apple
I keep catching stories about how unwitting parents hand over one of their (fill in the blank) electronic devices which are capable of making In App Purchases (for the uninitiated, many games on Apple / Android / Windows based devices allow you to make real purchases in game of various tools, supplies, etc…) only to discover that the child has racked up thousands of dollars of purchases in a very short time.
This is completely avoidable. There are a few ways to avoid it.
* Don’t let your child use the device.
* Don’t associate a credit-card with the account on the device.
* Log out of your account prior to handing it over.
* Disable the internet access on the device.
Personally, I think Apple should take the initiative with this by adding a few new options to the App store…
* An option to disable IAP.
* An option to prompt for the account password with *every purchase* instead of caching it for a short period of time.
It can’t be that hard. I realize that innovation doesn’t come easy to Apple these days, but if they put as much effort into raising the bar as they do in suing their competition – they wouldn’t have to worry about competition.
