MSE News: Warning: Are your kids playing these iPhone app games?

lazyjack

Jimbo96 wrote: »

...which can very easily be turned off in the Settings.



To download ANYTHING from the AppStore (even free apps) you need an AppleID, which requires verification details such as credit card details, name, address, security questions, password etc. so a child should not be setting up such an account anyway.

If you've gone through the whole 5-10 minute process of creating an AppleID and giving Apple your payment details, (in your oh-so-busy schedule) then the extra 20 seconds required to turn off the In-App Purchase options should not impact you too much.

And since these devices cost several hundred pounds, or require a contract, they are not often bought by children, they are sold to adults who should have the sense to check the suitability of the product for use by minors, and utilise any of the included precautions as they see fit BEFORE giving it to the child.

Why should the vast majority of adults who purchase these devices have to go through extra steps just to turn back on features that you want turned off by default just because of the lazy minority who buy them to babysit their kids for them?

YOU are the child's parent, not Apple, so YOU decide what rules and restrictions should be in place before passing the device to YOUR child.

Your internet connection is not provided with all child unsuitable content blocked. If you want to block such content from your child, YOU setup the restrictions to do so.

Your TV service is not provided with unsuitable channels and programmes blocked. If you want to block certain channels, you use the features of the TV or set top box to do so.

Your telephone service is not provided with premium rate numbers blocked. If you want to stop your child from dialling them, you use the features provided by your telecoms company to do so.

Its not all done by default, so why do you expect a tablet or smartphone to be locked down when you buy it?

Must be great being you, knowing everything.......

lazyjack

Jimbo96 wrote: »

Then that is a highly irresponsible parent. Why would any parent NOT read the user guide for an expensive gadget with internet access to find out what it is capable of before either buying it, or giving it to a child to use?

It's not like these features are hidden away, or the functions to block them...

Who would the parents blame if the child accessed pornography via the web browser?

Who would the parents blame if the child dialled easily accessible premium rate telephone numbers?

Parents need to take responsibility for their actions, especially as the functions to prevent such mishaps are easily activated.

Tablets and smartphones are not sold as surrogate babysitters!

OK, answer this. How can you possibly justify a free game (app), which is pretty much designed for kids, having the option to make an in-app purchase for £69 ?

Unfortunately, it is very clear what the app writers' intentions are.

Jimbo96

lazyjack wrote: »

Must be great being you, knowing everything.......

Fail to see where I said I know "everything" - but I do take the effort to know "enough" about the things I let my kids have access to BEFORE they get access to them. I believe that's one of my responsibilities as a parent. Your beliefs may differ...

Jimbo96

lazyjack wrote: »

How can you possibly justify a free game (app), which is pretty much designed for kids, having the option to make an in-app purchase for £69 ?

Well, that's something you'd have to ask the app developers to justify - not me - since they are the ones who set the prices, and have decided to fund development of these games via add-ons, rather than charging up-front for the game. Games aren't free to create.

Xbox, PlayStation, Wii and others, all offer games, add-ons, upgrades, etc. aimed at children (and adults) for tens, even hundreds of pounds.

Like everything in life, if you don't believe the price being asked is fair, then don't buy.

Personally, I would not buy £69 worth of 'gems' in a game for myself or my kids, but clearly some people do, and get enjoyment and presumably "value" out of it. That's up to them.

For the people who don't think it worthy, there is the option not to buy, or to turn off such purchasing options. The choice is yours.

Komododragon

sorry mate 15 min password setting wasn't given to me when i created my Apple ID (which was quite a while ago)

Same as IAP which if I'm correct came in the iOS 5 update (STBC)


Dunno why you're being so offensive about how I raise my kids and what my schedule is like when you don't know me

Totally agree that you can't have everything locked down and don't expect it to be locked down but we're talking about a feature that's will/and has caused all sorts of problems and will result in lots of people not trusting developers. People know what they're getting with a TV and a computer but Apps and IAP are still very new.

It's a well known pattern for a pop up window to appear asking you if you want to turn on IAP. It's used by a lot of apps for location services. That feature does nothing detrimental to the user experience. It's a loophole to be exploited and developers DO exploit it.

Amazon have been doing this for years where they give you the option of turning on 1-click purchasing if it makes your life easier. It's no different to setting up cloud, privacy setting etc

Really sorry that you have to throw out insults to everyone who's way of raising their children doesn't match up to the way you raised yours but some of us do miss things and you're being naive if you think companies don't exploit that.

Like I said i know about it now and have turned it off. In a few years time everyone else will too. Lets hope their trust in developers/manufacturers hasn't been eroded by then. Try and chill and have a good weekend

Komododragon

Jimbo96 wrote: »

Fail to see where I said I know "everything" - but I do take the effort to know "enough" about the things I let my kids have access to BEFORE they get access to them. I believe that's one of my responsibilities as a parent. Your beliefs may differ...

we all do the best we can. I know we're not all up to your standard but we're trying. Like I said I and many others have been educated. It'd be nice to try and understand that not everyone is in the same boat as you

wantmemoney

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=60597089&postcount=7

There is a well known psychological blame game that con artists (and others) very often use in situations like these. They blame the victims.

The victims (often children) will be blamed to make them feel guilty in order to get them to accept responsibility for the harm they have suffered.

this 'premonition' that the children and parents would be blamed was posted Today, 10:08 AM.

hopefully the OFT will decide the Premium Rate Industry advertisers, developers and various parties that share the revenue do have a responsibility for the way their services operate.

fizzyfish

This discussion has been raised before, when a news story was brought up on these apps on here. The discussion did, in a very friendly way, go down the, here is what you need to do to stop it, including screenshots etc, and that apple should not be refunding thousands of pounds when parents get emails daily on purchases, and to utilise the security features inbuilt.

Another feature of the previous discussion was that this news topic has been raised in December 2012 on bbc online, but was not given the coverage it is getting. Certainly when Martin raised it a few weeks ago, it did not get any of the reaction, but with today's little frenzy, it has been whipped up again (IMO of course )

As far as things go in our house, my DD uses the iPad, we have my little pony, smurfs, hay day and other titles on the hit list, but my apple id is not linked to my credit r debit card, in app purchases are always turned off when she has the iPad, and when I'm using it, it is set to immediate password. To switch the setting takes a couple of seconds.

I don't think letting kids use technology is a bad thing...far from it, DD uses PC as well, for flash things, but I am aware of what she is able to do, r not do even if I'm not around, and I try to educate her to come and ask, rather than button bash her way through.

My education of what she uses is what is important to me, and hopefully prevent anything happening and allow both of us better use of the technology.

FFx

J_i_m

Some of my thoughts on this topic:

In app purchases on games aimed at young children are plainly ridiculous. Expecting children barely out of toddling age to able to appreciate the value of real money is a big ask. An ask too big for the case of most. At those ages I don't think I even had pocket money let-alone knowledge of value.

So I think there is a strong argument for banning in-app purchase in games aimed at children and possibly also in games that children will inevitably end up playing.

However, for those saying that the parental responsibility take on this issue is unfair. Well sorry but that's also poppycock. First up, why is it necessary for young children to play with smartphones or tablet computers in the first place? What on earth is wrong with old Skool toys like dolls, plastic building blocks, toy cars, books etc?

I'm sorry, but if you're going to let your children play around on your smart phone without first investigating the various parental control options then you relinquish the right to be surprised then things go wrong.

Would you leave items potentially harmful such as tools, cleaning agents, medications within their reach? No? Why?

Well because they aren't aware of the dangers and could seriously hurt themselves, right? So what makes you think they're going to know that tapping on this icon a few too many times could drain mummies and daddies bank account of £xxxx. Strewth! At that age they probably don't even know what a bank account is.

Yes in-app purchase is over exploited, but that in no way absolves people of parental responsibility.

If I had kids, they would not be playing with my iPhone, they wouldn't have their own phone, they'd have toys pretending to be things that they aren't, or better still, playing out in the garden.

matttye

Komododragon wrote: »

Sorry had to sign up to MSE after seeing this article (even though I've been a long term user).

There have been a couple of other articles similar to this and any comments seem to degenerate into the same self righteous comments about how parents should turn off in-app purchases and should take responsibility.

While I agree that parents need to be very careful when it comes to letting their kids getting/seeing their passwords, the majority of these cases - which result in refunds - aren't about parents who don't take responsibility for what is and isn't downloaded.

It's about the 15 min password window and more specifically the automatic opt-in to in-app purchases. The bottom line is most parents, especially those looking after 1/2/3 young children and all that comes with that (lack of sleep, lack of energy, short term memory loss, premature ageing, running a household, full-time job, childcare issues) don't have the time to read every little bit of info about the operating system they just updated on their phone/tablet.

Now if I remember correctly the opt in/opt out in-app purchase feature didn't come onto the operating system until one of the later versions (on Apple which I use). And when it did I'm pretty sure Apple weren't shouting about how everyone is being opted into it.

And even if they were it's the sort of thing some people are just gonna miss if they have a busy schedule. Some people just want the device to work and really haven't the time to find out how - that's just life.

Bottom line is a lot of people won't know about it until an accident has happened.

I was one of those people.

Same old story - bought an app for my son, had a quick look at it, gave tablet to him and then went to empty the diarrhea filled nappy of the youngest all within 15 minutes. Next day got an email saying I'd made £25 worth of in-app purchases (no password required). The boy didn't even realise he'd done anything just touching buttons on the screen.

I've turned it off now that I know about the automatic opt-in. There is a simple solution to this and that's to let people CHOOSE to turn in-app purchasing on as you do with e-commerce sites and 1-click ordering. There's absolutely no reason to have in-app purchasing automatically on. Any user that wants to buy something within an app WILL always find out how to do it (I've watched enough user testing and seen enough user testing reports to know this)

AGREE it should be opt-in rather than opt-out but DISAGREE its anyone's fault but the parents.

You let your kids loose on a tablet/smartphone with your financial information on it and things will get bought. It's a no brainer. They could just as easily buy 3000 songs in iTunes.

And so many people use autocomplete, they could probably get into shopping accounts etc.