Options:
- Use your Apple ID account balance (i.e. either transfer funds to Apple ID, or redeem a gift card)
- Have the family organizer turn off Purchase Sharing
- Leave the family group
- Let the charge go to the organizer & reimburse them
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is there seriously still no way to make my own purchases on a family plan?
- Thread starter eicca
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It sounds like the OP wants the best of both worlds with family sharing: the cost-saving benefits of shared purchases and the freedom for all adults in the group to buy independently. Essentially, they're looking for a setup that resembles a cooperative among adults, sharing access to purchases while maintaining individual purchasing autonomy, rather than the traditional model of a single household with dependents.
Exactly! There’s nothing wrong with family sharing, it’s purchase sharing that OP is upset about—and that can be disabled without having to leave the family! Big difference!
Not that I am sure I understood you correctly through the foul language. But if you have your own credit card, why not get your own Appleid and make your own purchases. Your quote:
"All I want to do is use my own ****ING CARD to make my own ****ING PURCHASE. I am a ****ING ADULT."
"All I want to do is use my own ****ING CARD to make my own ****ING PURCHASE. I am a ****ING ADULT."
I agree with the OP, purchase sharing as it is now is kinda bad. I get that for children it makes sense to work that way, but it should have an option for adults in the family to simultaneously use their own payment method without having to disable the feature entirely.
The obvious solution is just to turn it off, but it would be nice if it just worked better. It feels like the current setup was done to be just annoying enough so as to only be useful for children.
The obvious solution is just to turn it off, but it would be nice if it just worked better. It feels like the current setup was done to be just annoying enough so as to only be useful for children.
Exactly. When it was just me and my wife on the account…purchase sharing was off and we were both able to make purchases with our own cards. Now, we have purchase sharing turned on, but it’s only because we added our daughter.
The organizer just needs to turn purchase sharing off and that’ll solve the issue.
If it's this upsetting, why not leave the family plan and set up your own account. I always assumed the family plan was for parents children. It's not really designed for a 30 year old with credit cards. Not trying to be offensive... Just seems like an easy solution.
There are four obvious solutions, which I outlined in my last reply. Which one the user chooses, depends on their circumstances.
Case in point: My 35-year-old daughter (along with my 84-year-old mother) are both members of my family sharing plan. Daughter is on it so that she gains access to some software (few hundred $$$ worth) that I own. When she decides to make a purchase, she just Apple Pay Cash transfers the money to me. Not that big of a deal.
As to WHY Apple doesn't allow a member to use their own card - I don't know. My guess is it's either (a) too much trouble e.g. not enough people really care about it enough to program, debug, and support the feature or (b) legal/licensing issue with the shared content owners, e.g. terms of Apple's contract with software devs and/or media content owners.
Request a feature enhancement if you want Apple to look in to extra features. There is no argument, it was the reason Apple built the feature. When it comes to predatory Apps or security, it’s gonna be cat and mouse game. Companies invest billions in security, yet they get hacked. Getting hacked doesn’t negate them investing in to security.
Yeah but it's not an issue for me, I'm not going to file a complaint with Apple when this sounds like something that you should be addressing at home. Sorry bro.
Leaving aside that Apple Cash is only only available in the US (which is fine, there are other ways to transfer money), this still just feels like something Apple should be able to solve rather than leaving it to the user to sort out repayments. Picking a payment method isn’t rocket science.
Disassociate your account from the family plan and start your own family if you want or be individual. It’s easy to do.
Some adults suffer from gambling addiction and are NOT capable of their own decisions. That bleeds into micro transaction addiction.
That is why this is a great system.
Last edited:
100% this. Purchase sharing makes the “family organizer” have to really monitor their credit card statements because other family members don’t even get the option to use their own. It feels manipulative and unsatisfying. I basically agree with OP (cursing notwithstanding) and find all the replies about what’s in the customer agreement and “just don’t use it” kinda gross and irritating.
This doesn’t bother me day-to-day but Apple designed it to be annoying for adults who share a household but have different payment methods.
I find iTunes Gift Cards just fine for this. Honestly, I much prefer gift cards over seeing a whole bunch of $0.99-19.99 micro transactions from iTunes on my credit card bill anyway.
I'm not advocating for them to take away your ability to use gift cards, but that does sound like a terrible workaround to me. If already have my cards loaded onto my phone and attached to my account, I should be able to pay with them directly. Make it a toggle on the family organiser's device so they have to enable it to let me do it if that's what's needed to keep people safe or whatever. I don't get what's so complicated and objectionable about this.
Here we go, find all sorts of excuses to make up for the fact that this system Apple designed is not good and needs improvements. Using iTunes gift card? Loading the account? While digital gift cards are readily available, the entire point of using credit card is to enjoy benefits and pay the bill some time later. Using gift cards is akin to use cash, but worse since you lose the Privacy benefit true cash brings.
People say just leave the “Family”. So instead of pointing out the system has issues and needs improvement, we just leave the bad system, except there is literally no alternative. It’s either yes or no, very binary, very Apple. Why things must be so black and white?
Apple seems to have extremely high ego and won’t let anyone hurt it or something. Rather than accepting the imperfection of their solutions, they blame customers who raises the issue As a default. We all have brain dead moments that just can’t see the obvious, but that does not apply to OP here, which is also echoed by another post highlighting the same issue.
Attitude like this is probably one reason why Apple is being targeted by governments around the world more intensely.
People say just leave the “Family”. So instead of pointing out the system has issues and needs improvement, we just leave the bad system, except there is literally no alternative. It’s either yes or no, very binary, very Apple. Why things must be so black and white?
Apple seems to have extremely high ego and won’t let anyone hurt it or something. Rather than accepting the imperfection of their solutions, they blame customers who raises the issue As a default. We all have brain dead moments that just can’t see the obvious, but that does not apply to OP here, which is also echoed by another post highlighting the same issue.
Attitude like this is probably one reason why Apple is being targeted by governments around the world more intensely.
Apple should have an interpretation table featuring all English words they are using and define every single one of them in their ToS meaning instead of relying on common sense and logic. Surely it will work better for them.Oh really. Excuse me for reading about 'family' in dictionaries and not in Apple's ToS
No, Apple designed it so families with small children could be on the family account without having to be responsible for the bills - children can't sign legally binding contracts anyway, so they kind of have to do it this way.
Apple realizes that the number of "adults who share a household but have different payment methods" who all want to be on the same family plan are likely a vanishingly small percentage of those who want to use the family plan. If they wanted to make a "roommates plan," they would have.
here we go again with Apple hate and always at fault. It’s simple common sense. Apple provides two options.
1. Individual options for Adults, you can do what ever as grownup.
2. Family option with central organizer.
What some want here is Individual + Family. Apple doesn’t offer the third hybrid option, they never claimed. What yall need to do is request Apple for an hybrid approach.
This is such a weak excuse for a half-baked feature. Or, I guess, bad communication about the feature.
If it’s only meant for kids, they should be upfront about that. Or, if it’s not just for kids, it’s poorly implemented. Pick whichever you want to be true, but either way it’s not good enough.
It’s a poor understanding, half baked I must say. Apple doesn’t say kids or adults. I shared my family plan with my wife, and Mom before we got kids their devices. What Apple clearly communicated about having one central organizer. Now if you want to make it hybrid with multiple organizers, it’s an enhancement. And that’s a separate conversation on what happens when kids start abusing multiple organizers. Next comes, providing ability to effectively handle Multiple organizers. Does Apple really need to support all fringe cases, unless there is a wider use.
Last edited:
Ah, so you don’t understand what people are asking for. Got it. No one is asking for multiple organisers. We’re asking to be able to be part of a family but opt for different payment methods when appropriate. It’s a pretty simple concept, I’m surprised you’re struggling with it.
This is funny. Like I said above it’s simple common sense. Payments go through central organizer currently. The change requested here is multiple people to organize their own payments, it is no longer centralized single person controlling the transactions. If this is not the definition of non-centralized, then whole banking payment systems, Blockchain must rethink themselves.
This thread is fascinating though, it will make a modern day marsh Mellow experiment done by Stanford back in the day. And I didn’t say I am for or against the request, just giving a context on what is available and what is the enhancement.
It still is centralised. There is still one central person sharing their purchases with a family, it just means that the people being shared with are not completely beholden to that person and can still make their own purchases if needed. I’m genuinely shocked at how much you’re struggling to understand this.