Good question - this was one of the details I left out of my comment because I ran out of time...
The feature called (as you say) "Ask to buy" is not what the name implies. It's actually "Ask to download anything, including free stuff".
You end up turning it off after being interrupted 5 times a day to approve free stuff. Many are free games, some are even apps needed for school (the Apps needed for school are sometimes time sensitive - if I don't approve it within a few hours it can be a problem).
This is what I alluded to with the "plausible deniability" comment. Apple can say we have an "Ask to buy" feature but they cripple[0] the feature so as to make most parents turn it off.
[0] I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether this is intentional or not. Based on the dark patterns present, I personally think it's 100% intentional.
I wrote to Tim about it. Never heard back. Wasn't surprised.
Most of the problem you describe here can be overcome by talking with your kids. My 11 year old knows full well that I’m going to say “no” to anything that isn’t related to his school work or something that we’ve had a prior conversation about. He has his phone for communication and his school scheduling software (isams). No social media, no games. My younger kids have iPads and we use built in functionality to make the App Store entirely invisible to them. If they discover something they like through other means they know they can talk to us and discuss.
It’s really not that difficult to communicate with your kids and then this kind of problem goes away.
Thanks for the well intentioned comment but not all kids are the same. Nor are their needs. I don’t want to get into my child’s details (special needs, learning disability, needs some apps for a special school that he attends)
I’ve since cleared all this up with him but that’s not even the point.
The point is Apple was charging me (weekly) without providing the means to even see what I was paying for nor the ability to cancel it.
It was $10 /week for a ringtone app ($520 per year) which is a blatantly obvious scam. The app had a “3 day” trial which requires the child to cancel 24 hours before the trial period ends.
In reality, that is a two day trial. How they can legally call that a three day trial is beyond me.
It’s a scam, plain and simple. They should be ashamed.
The feature called (as you say) "Ask to buy" is not what the name implies. It's actually "Ask to download anything, including free stuff".
You end up turning it off after being interrupted 5 times a day to approve free stuff. Many are free games, some are even apps needed for school (the Apps needed for school are sometimes time sensitive - if I don't approve it within a few hours it can be a problem).
This is what I alluded to with the "plausible deniability" comment. Apple can say we have an "Ask to buy" feature but they cripple[0] the feature so as to make most parents turn it off.
[0] I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether this is intentional or not. Based on the dark patterns present, I personally think it's 100% intentional.
I wrote to Tim about it. Never heard back. Wasn't surprised.