Something you will have plenty of opportunity to do when you are an adult.
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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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Yeah, no. That's why it's called "family" and not called "random collective of humans".
hmmm, some weird definitions for family are flying around here ...
So, from my understanding, the perspective of most of the ppl here is that it's not okay that I'm the organizer of a family group where my parents are members (beside of my partner, 15yo boy and 19yo daughter).
Nice try ...
So, from my understanding, the perspective of most of the ppl here is that it's not okay that I'm the organizer of a family group where my parents are members (beside of my partner, 15yo boy and 19yo daughter).
Nice try ...
That’s different though. You’re the one helping them out because they’re not digitally literate. That’s a nice thing to do x
But as an adult who I can assume can pay their own bills the OP sounds like he still has his parents paying for his iCloud and services, possibly a vestige from college?
And here lies what defined the ”family sharing” in the eyes of apple. One overlord figure controlling everything, rather than a group of intelligent individuals sharing some purchases and some media. Apple’s philosophy is so close to what some countries operating it give me chill.
Unless their philosophy changes, nothing much could change really.
No. What OP wants is adding his own purchase methods via his credit card, so purchase can Happen under his account, without leaving and rejoining family group or similar actions. It’s similar To families sharing the same place and some appliances And furnitures etc but also their own personal stuff, as outlined by other members.
Also, what if he uses apple balance to buy stuff and leave family plan at some point afterwards? Would Apple just remove those purchases from his account?
Your comment sounds more and more like it’s what Apple thought about from the start as “a way to purchase items individually While in a family” rather than a deficient system with design flaws that should be fixed. It’s not OP’s problem Interpreting “family“ differently from Apple. It’s Apple’s problem to not design the system so that adults can split the purchases between family sharing and personal account.
I'm the organizer for me, my mom, dad and grandma.
We do this because I'm the movie purchaser and the subscription buyer. (Paramount+, Starz, Apple One Premier, etc) Not to mention the fact that it saves money for us. I put everything Apple on Apple Card and they pay me half the total... usually $25 or so.
It just works for us.
Yup, it’s a very old-school, conservative concept of a family. Not really in line with Apple’s larger messaging and values, but I guess they’re willing to abandon any and all values if they think it’ll drive even the smallest amount of revenue. As a consequence, i don’t use family sharing and opt for apps or services I can buy/subscribe to outside of the App Store and set up teams/seats/shared licenses that way.
I have little faith that Apple will ever fix this issue.
Not just this issue, many other pain points people complaining will never be fixed to satisfaction even if Apple is forced to do so. The fundamental of the company does not change, no other change can be made and whatever change one may see is merely superficial. EU wasn’t doing a great job writing their DMA but Apple has no intention to comply either, because of, idk, their ego or sth, on top of protecting their service revenue.
Why don’t you just “leave the family”? Settings, tap your name at top, family sharing, leave family?
This thread is hilarious. Great example of wanting to have the cake and eat it, too.
They can't even merge two Apple accounts together yet, how do you expect this from them, quite apart from the fact that if there is more than one adult in the family who wants to keep their purchases independent what benefit is there to being under family sharing?
Every answer quasi-defending the OP here seems just to be different degrees of Tech Karen or wishing for things that will never happen.
On the plus side tho, if there are enough of you out there Apple will eventually find a way that works, since you Tech Karens are their main demographic.
Apple simply define family as a group of people with close relationship, regardless of the age, to share their Apple digital life who are purchased from a central entity, aka family organiser. This definition only covers a narrow type of family in existence with little to no flexibility. Irl family not just share some stuff together, but also having their own personal space, and such setup is far more common than Apple’s authoritarian approach. It’s not about “tech Karen”, it’s about acknowledging this one-size-fits-all is insufficient and needs to evolve. But yeah, Apple will never change that because they will never acknowledge the issue exists.
Nobody has managed to answer my question yet either: what is a 30yo adult doing in the family group for a parent's iCloud account? If you are the controller and are setting things up for elderly parents thats one thing but still spongoing your parents cloud storage and subscriptions when you have clearly indicated you can pay for them yourself is a little bit apron strings, right?
I get your point @Ctrlos (I think), but ... because ... why not?
My 19yo daughter (in Austria you are an adult when you turn 18) is still in the group, she earns enough money to live alone and pay for everything.
But why should she take her own plan? She is a member of the family ...
On the other hand, she doesn't buy apps or so ... (I think nobody does, beside of me ... 😂)
For me, from my pov, that's somehow like saying you do not buy Apple One because you do not use Fitness+ and so you buy every other service separate because you can afford it. (last time I checked it was still cheaper to buy Apple One if you don't need only one service)
I can give you a real-life example, imho the age doesn't matter for this:
My 15yo boy could buy stuff in the AppStore with his own debit card (one app usually costs less than a 10 € gift card).
We don't have purchase approvals turned on since he turned 14, it's not necessary, we don't want to turn it on.
We have disabled in-app purchases, but he knows the screentime code, it acts as an additional layer of security to avoid accidental buys.
He can basically download/install "whatever he wants", even buy apps (but this I would see on my credit card).
With his own debit card, he would have the possibility to purchase "whatever he wants" with his own money (yeah, basically he gets the money from us, but that's not the point), no questions asked from parents' side, because we wouldn't even know.
My credit card could still be used as a backup, if a transaction fails.
My 19yo daughter (in Austria you are an adult when you turn 18) is still in the group, she earns enough money to live alone and pay for everything.
But why should she take her own plan? She is a member of the family ...
On the other hand, she doesn't buy apps or so ... (I think nobody does, beside of me ... 😂)
For me, from my pov, that's somehow like saying you do not buy Apple One because you do not use Fitness+ and so you buy every other service separate because you can afford it. (last time I checked it was still cheaper to buy Apple One if you don't need only one service)
I can give you a real-life example, imho the age doesn't matter for this:
My 15yo boy could buy stuff in the AppStore with his own debit card (one app usually costs less than a 10 € gift card).
We don't have purchase approvals turned on since he turned 14, it's not necessary, we don't want to turn it on.
We have disabled in-app purchases, but he knows the screentime code, it acts as an additional layer of security to avoid accidental buys.
He can basically download/install "whatever he wants", even buy apps (but this I would see on my credit card).
With his own debit card, he would have the possibility to purchase "whatever he wants" with his own money (yeah, basically he gets the money from us, but that's not the point), no questions asked from parents' side, because we wouldn't even know.
My credit card could still be used as a backup, if a transaction fails.
I operate similar restricitons with my own kids who are 10 and 16 and should either of them ever go off to University I would happily keep letting them share. But if either of my kids are living at home at the age of 30 which as parents we know is when life really begins then there are some deeper issues there! My youngest uses an iPhone 6 which I keep tight control over but my oldest has a Pixel 6 he has free run of.
Things like care don't fall into the same category IMO because in that case you are probably the master account in that situation. My 55 year old neighbour looks after his 84 year old mother and sorts out her phone for her.
The OP sounded like their biggest issue was actually that they were still part of the group in the first place and wanted their independence. Of course I am basing my opinions on my life in Britain where we generally don't want to live at home past 22. Other cultures have much tighter knit family groups often in the same household but certainly in the same town, even in the states.
I agree, but the age can vary depending on when the kid is out of school and should start to work.
Also I agree with the rest of your post.
A bit of hyperbole here? Or maybe the way some people see the world, I don't know. Apple doesn't give a rat's butt about someone being an "overlord," that's the lens you are seeing this issue through.
Apple built its system this way to have one person fiscally and legally responsible for the purchases & licensing for several different accounts assigned to a small group of affiliated people who all use their services. Period. They really, truly, honestly don't care how people define "family" for the purposes of this plan and they aren't concerned about families having an authoritarian figure. They want a credit card number and legal responsibility because they are running a business.
That is indeed outside the scope of what Apple expects family to mean even though that's literally family. Family is intended to be household.
There is nothing old school or conservative about it. This is what a family is. Perverting the definition of a word because you can't find a way to apply it to yourself is not how words work. Though it is 100% how the internet has taught people how words work, so I can understand your confusion.
Too lazy to read the whole thread: The user can buy an Apple Gift Card and apply it to their account. Then any purchases that they make will be initially made from that gift card. My adult daughters have done this many times for things that they want to purchase and still remain part of the family.