Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Do You Let Your Kids Play With Your iDevice? You Might Want To Read This First

The Washington Post reported that in two days, an eight-year-old girl racked up a shocking $150 bill from Apple by playing a children’s app game.
  Wow, the most I have spend on apps to date is around $20.
Eight-year-old Leyla Ulku collected tigers, sea turtles and giraffes on the iPhone game Tap Zoo to build her one-animal pen into a vast safari park. She also amassed a shocking $150 bill from Apple.
The iTunes game, made by San Francisco-based Pocket Gems, is one of the most popular for Apple gadgets and also one of the fastest grossing. But Tap Zoo and other games such as Smurf Village have sparked outrage among parents, who question Apple policies that allow games aimed at children to sell pricey add-ons without adequate sales safeguards.

The games are part of category of free applications on Apple’s iTunes store that let companies charge users for products and services when the application is launched. Those purchases for Tap Zoo include $19 for a bucket of stars or $99 for a bucket of coins to buy animals to build a safari.. WHAT!!
Apple said it tries to prevent episodes like Leyla’s from happening by requesting a password when making “in app purchases.” And parents can change settings on iPhones, iPads and iPods to restrict downloading and in-app purchases, Apple spokeswoman Truly Muller said. – via Washington Post
Turns out other families are complaining of similar episodes involving their children.
Two ways to play it safe guys,

1.  Don’t have a credit card saved on your itunes account.

You can always buy a iTunes card to keep a balance or…

2. Turn off in-app purchases

1. Go to Settings
2. Select Restrictions
3. Enter four-digit security passcode
4. On Restrictions screen, go to In App Purchases toward bottom
5. Turn to Off
Have any of you had a similar issue?  Let us know in the comments below.

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