Mar 11
Partially billed as a way to keep children from picking up their parents’ iPhones and going crazy with in-app purchases and partially billed as a way to keep less-than-ethical iOS developers from making it deceptively easy to buy a ton of in-app content without knowing you’re agreeing to spend money, Apple’s latest update to iOS forces you to enter your password to accept in-app purchases for a 15 minute window. During that window, you can make all of the in-app purchases you like in any app before you’re required to enter your password again.
This all started because some iOS developers discovered that if someone made an in-app purchase within 15 minutes of installing an app on their iOS device, they didn’t have to enter their iTunes password again and they were automatically charged for it. Some people (specifically children) went wild with it, and were ever so slightly encouraged by apps that encouraged in-app purchases immediately after install. All of this led to massive credit card bills, and angry complaints to Apple that the users in question never explicitly authorized the charges.
Apple’s fix is to put the 15-minute password window in place to allow you to make purchases without having to enter your password every single time, but once the window is up, you’ll have to explicitly open the door to in-app purchases again.
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