Spouses who don’t have joint accounts aren’t “roommates.”
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Is there seriously still no way to make my own purchases on a family plan?
- Thread starter eicca
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And if spouses can't figure out how to pay for things that they both use, then they have bigger problems than their Apple account, but that's not my business.
+1
The inflexibility of the Apple account in general, and family sharing in particular, is ridiculous.
Why is it not possible to use different credit cards for different purchases, or different types of purchases?
Why can’t the family organizer choose which purchases to share and which to hide?
Why does everyone in the family need to be able to see which devices the others have?
It is quite common for families with small children to contain two adults, sharing equal responsibility for the family while also retaining their individual identities.
They buy groceries for the household, gifts for the children, gifts for each other, drinks out with the girls and plane tickets for work, typically using different purchase methods for each.
I don’t think it is too much to ask for the Apple ID concept to reflect this reality.
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Wait until they find out families can sometimes be made up of more than six people 🤯
Family organizer can hide a purchase, it’s very easy to do.
As pointed out earlier - this is either something Apple doesn't want to take the time to address because it's just not necessary enough - or (more likely, IMO) a legal requirement from their agreements with app devs & media content providers.
Put in the feedback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's helped before. We got DMA removed from audio a few years ago. Just don't be surprised if it takes a few years because of in-place agreements that need to expire.
IN THE MEANTIME....
You have four options 😬
Put in the feedback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's helped before. We got DMA removed from audio a few years ago. Just don't be surprised if it takes a few years because of in-place agreements that need to expire.
IN THE MEANTIME....
You have four options 😬
Not without also hiding it from myself, which is annoying, and it is not possible to share that expensive BDSM app with my partner without also sharing it with the children.
I gave you a real-world use case. Your dull sarcasm about it is meaningless to me.
Put in a feature request with Apple for your BDSM app use case. If there are enough BDSM app users, Apple will add the feature. Or you can have a separate App Store ID for use cases like this if you want your kids to be not involved in apps like that. Takes 20 seconds to switch user name and once installed, you don’t need to switch.
I have a long list of bug reports and feature requests that I submit every iOS and macOS release, with screen shots, sample code and steps to reproduce.
Because OP wants it both ways: both share purchases to save money, and have a full AppleID with no restrictions to do their own purchases.
"Family sharing" is for just that: families. Not for friends to share purchases to save money.
You were so close to understanding the problem, but it all fell apart at that last sentence.
Apple is intentionally doing this to discourage people who don't have a strong relationship from forming an Apple family. The thinking is this: As the organizer, you probably won't add people who you don't strongly trust, since they can charge your credit card. On the other hand side, people who don't have a strong relationship with the organizer and wouldn't want to charge someone else's card wouldn't want to join. Of course, this isn't 100% foolproof, but it makes it much less appealing for people to "resell" their subscriptions or apps by offering random people to join their family and share the fee. Netflix had this problem to some degree, where people who barely knew each other shared Netflix accounts.
Netflix charges you extra for multiple simultaneous streams, so why should they decide where those streams go?
If I had a 17yo, 13yo, 9yo, 5yo & 1yo I'd do this.
I'd want to lock down my kids devices to avoid scams from reaching them.
That's really not the point. I said Apple is trying to achieve the same goal as Netflix: Prevent people from sharing more than they want to.
"I am not the family organizer and it is not my card."
Then it seems only reasonable that you were refused the sale.
You may be on the plan, but it's not your account.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong here. A family plan doesn't mean everybody is under the same Apple ID, but instead an organizer adds multiple people already with their own Apple ID to a plan. This is to share subscriptions like TV, News plus etc. OPs rant is justified IMO, it sounds like a stupid design.
The point of family sharing is not put all purchases through one account. Why are so many people like you confidently touting the wrong information. It's a 5 second google search away.
From Apple's website.
"Family Sharing lets you and up to five other family members share access to amazing Apple services like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+ and Apple Arcade. Your group can also share iTunes, Apple Books and App Store purchases, an iCloud storage plan and a family photo album. You can even help locate each other’s missing devices."
A family subscription to Apple One is only like 20% more than one individual subscription, that's the main draw.
You can use a credit card to buy gift cards. I do this all the time. Whenever I’m at the store I always pick one up. It help me keep things budgeted (I planned according to pick up a gift card every week). Instead of having my CC only being used. It’s too easy to buy a $4 movie here and there. And it can add up.
Yes. How exactly would it determine which card to hit? Which organizer will get chosen this time for the IAP?
This is definitely a pain and it's for no reason. If a member of a family has their own credit card attached to their Apple ID, there should be an option for purchases they make to be billed to their card rather than the family organiser's card. My wife and I both have 50 GB iCloud accounts (we don't need a 200 GB single account before anyone asks); we both have our own credits cards attached to our accounts; every month, her iCloud sub is billed to my account. If she has iTunes credit on her account it is billed to that rather than me. It drives me mad: not because I don't want to pay, but because it's just a stupid limitation of the system.
Adding iTunes credit to her account is not convenient (you have to keep an eye on the balance) and ties up cash (you give Apple £10+ so they get the benefit of interest/cash in hand, but you only use £0.99 each month). There should be a very simple solution which is to have an option to bill purchases to the attached credit card rather than the family organiser. If they want to stop people taking advantage of the family sharing options, then make it a requirement that the credit card billing addresses for each adult in the family account have to match.
Adding iTunes credit to her account is not convenient (you have to keep an eye on the balance) and ties up cash (you give Apple £10+ so they get the benefit of interest/cash in hand, but you only use £0.99 each month). There should be a very simple solution which is to have an option to bill purchases to the attached credit card rather than the family organiser. If they want to stop people taking advantage of the family sharing options, then make it a requirement that the credit card billing addresses for each adult in the family account have to match.
Keep in mind all in most places you are an adult at age 18 legally. Most people go to college at this age. It is very rare to have an adult at 18 be super financially responsible. This just scales the complexity exponentially to address your concerns. What you all want is a third option - Adult and Responsible.
If you all aren’t sharing content heavily, just use separate accounts. This can’t handle every edge case. Gift cards is the best solution to this. If you really can’t spend the time to even get a digital gift card, there is a problem and this is a good barrier (dealt with this first hand with addiction, which is why even if it’s my card on my account I always use gift cards).
I do this everywhere. Amazon, Steam, PlayStation etc. I am 40 years old and dealt with severe addiction and debt due to these IAP and micro transactions. Having by your Credit Card saved is a potential issue for many many MANY people. I’m not alone in this which is why my family while also adults love the barriers too.
If you all aren’t sharing content heavily, just use separate accounts. This can’t handle every edge case. Gift cards is the best solution to this. If you really can’t spend the time to even get a digital gift card, there is a problem and this is a good barrier (dealt with this first hand with addiction, which is why even if it’s my card on my account I always use gift cards).
I do this everywhere. Amazon, Steam, PlayStation etc. I am 40 years old and dealt with severe addiction and debt due to these IAP and micro transactions. Having by your Credit Card saved is a potential issue for many many MANY people. I’m not alone in this which is why my family while also adults love the barriers too.
Apple needs to create roles, and payments, apps associated with each role to manage it effectively. In essence, this becomes a business order management. Amazon doesnt offer this for consumer prime but gives more order management for small business/Business prime. May be Apple can create similar premium services like Amazon with order management baked in to the store. Of course it all depends on the demand. And even Amazon stays away from offering the same level of order management for Prime Video, Music, Apps and Kindle.
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