Family Sharing?

G’day,

Next week my 9yo starts Grade 4, and as per his school, required an iPad capable of running the latest iOS, and ideally with at least 32GB of storage. He also requires his own Apple ID, that he is not allowed to know the password for.

As such, we’ve just had an expedition to Chadstone, and come home with an iPad Air 2, 32GB Space Grey ($555 @ Myer), with a Griffin Survivor Slim case ($82 JBHiFi).

When going to set up the Apple ID, I noted the option for linking devices as a “family”, and that you can have accounts for children provided they are supervised by an adult via the family setup. I was going to use that option, however - what exactly will be blocked off when using his age? One of the apps the school has asked to be installed they have noted as being for 12+… So - will iTunes block him from downloading that app if we provide his real age??

Thanks,

cosmic

Thanks I’ll check it out.

We have family sharing. It requires you to give permission when they download an app. Also uses your CC by the way. I haven’t been able to discern any problems with age limitations on the apps, probably because you are giving permission.

Be very careful if by some chance the child gets your ID then the only recourse you have is to lodge a complaint with Apple and they MIGHT give you a credit for the charge.

Note that if you don’t apply to Apple within 10 days you are toast.

Although the limitations on the child are put on by the owner of the Apple ID there are many and varied ways for the child to overcome the constraints.

My careful nature is that I personally got caught for $250 charges instigated by a 7 year old. I know of an instance in our wider family where a relative got caught for over $1600 in charge, also instigated by a child well under 13 years old…
s.

This probably isn’t the solution but at the school I work at we use Apple Configurator 2 to fleet manage iOS devices. You can create profiles and blueprints of what goes on the device and control whether the kid can install apps and all sorts of other stuff. The nice thing about it is you are the ‘supervisor’ so if they put a passcode on the device you can override it.

But Family Sharing probably should be enough.

Just a thought. As I say it may not be the solution or might be overkill.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. :slight_smile:

I’ve managed to avoid putting a c/card on my iTunes account til now… but it seems the run stops here, cos family sharing MUST have a card. It’s not a huge issue… PayPal have my card details/etc, I just figure the less it’s “out there” the better…

The school don’t actually mention the family sharing option in their instructions, but my son’s (now) old iPad has a number of purchased apps on it that he will otherwise lose unless we do the sharing, and it does essentially give me some control over the device too, so that can’t be a bad thing, I guess. From what I can tell, the school don’t want to know any passcodes - they’ve indicated that they will provide details on how to instal certain apps that they have a bulk-buy discount on, etc…

With regard to charges, my nephew ran up a HUGE debt playing some fake-fish-tank game a few years ago… He figured out the password by watching his mother put it in… After discussions, Apple reduced the debt by about 90% I think… But yes - it’s something that’s been heavily instilled in our 9yo that he cannot even go into the App Store without parental supervision, and we’ve made sure he knows the difference between in-app purchases Vs freebie activities. So fingers crossed he wont be an issue… (of course, there’s the nearly 4yo who is now inheriting the old iPad Mini… and 1yo who loves making Siri talk…)

Credit card signed away… and then - The family member under 13yo MUST have an iCloud email address…??? Ahh, no. I don’t care if he never ever uses it - I had no intention of giving my 9yo his own email address - was going to link it to my wife’s email. What is it with Apple shoehorning everyone toward their products!?

I’ve found some steps to get around this new hurdle… Will try tonight after a scotch n coke.

Do s it HaVE to be a credit card for family sharing? The child account would just debit off the parent one I would have thought. Mind you Apple wants your credit card.

At this stage I’ve seen no way to get around not having a credit card on file if you want to activate family sharing.

This was an issue at christmas for me, when I was tasked with setting an iPad up for a two-year-old (not mine). Ended up going with a full account temporarily.

I’m going to do the family sharing method in a couple of weeks and have decided to go with my prepaid Optus Pay Virtual Credit Card which was the planet Christmas but unfortunately Apple preauthorised a dollar transaction to verify the card and that money wasn’t clearing over the Christmas holidays.

Once Apple returns the preauthorisation amount of a dollar I’ll have heritage cancel and reissue a new Virtual Credit Card and hopefully there should be no issues with the iTunes account needing another credit card into 2021.

Too late for you, @Kyle-K, but this was what I am going to try:

https://snapguide.com/guides/setup-family-sharing-without-apple-email-addresses/

It involves setting up a child account and saying the child is 13-18 yo even if they are younger, which avoids the need for the iCloud email account, then go back in and correct the age.

I’ll report back after that scotch… Vanilla Coke and Scotch… Mmm… Let’s see…

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Kids these days https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliareinstein/gotta-add-em-all-to-cart?

Actually that’s quite helpful. Don’t think it allows you to get around the credit card requirement?

But the account I did set up which isn’t part of Family Sharing is already at the domain name I registered for the two-year-old [email protected]. Excellent so it looks like I’ll just be able to add that account into the Family Sharing once we have a credit card on file.

No, I couldn’t find a way to get around the credit card. Even now I have successfully set up Jim’s account as a child of 9yo (after the above work around - creating him first as a 14yo then changing his age after joining the family), it appears I cannot remove the credit card from my account.

Although I had set up sharing of purchases, my son’s iPad could not see any of my purchases in his App store until I signed out of his account, blew some magic fairy dust into the air and chanted a secret incantation seventeen times, and then signed back in. And out, and in. And did a little dance. Which is my way of saying - I signed in and out a few times, went in and out of family sharing on my own iPad, scratched my head a lot, and then suddenly my son who by this point was eagerly hanging around like a bad smell, declared that my purchases were now showing up.

[quote=“Kyle-K, post:10, topic:3117”]I’m going to do the family sharing method in a couple of weeks and have decided to go with my prepaid Optus Pay Virtual Credit Card which was the planet Christmas but unfortunately Apple preauthorised a dollar transaction to verify the card and that money wasn’t clearing over the Christmas holidays.

Once Apple returns the preauthorisation amount of a dollar I’ll have heritage cancel and reissue a new Virtual Credit Card and hopefully there should be no issues with the iTunes account needing another credit card into 2021.[/quote]

I was finally able to take care of this this month I added the credit card to the account which took a dollar out of the account for pre-authorisation. This was completely expected.

However what was unexpected each time I added a member to family sharing they wanted to take another authorisation transaction. So if you go this route you might want to make sure you’ve got more than a dollar on the account. It also took them up to a week to return the funds each time.

Luckily I’ve only got one more member to add to the family sharing.

Okay different family sharing set up.

I’m wondering if you can pay for services using iTunes Credit planning on setting up family sharing and then using iTunes credit to pay for the iCloud Storage and Apple Music family subscription.

With iTunes cards bought it 20% off. Anyone have experience paying for the services in the family sharing set up with iTunes credit?

I do this. Four family members and the monthly iCloud storage charge is billed to “Store Credit”. I’ve purchased the 2TB storage plan and share that amongst the family instead of each member having their own plan.

Not that I remember to keep the store credit topped up all the time, but I try to grab a card when they are some percentage off. If only BigW would do a 50% off deal again, that was a wild time!

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I remember buying a ton of cards at OfficeWorks back in the day when they used to do 2x$20 for $30. That was good too. I do the same.

I also subscribe to this site’s RSS feed. :slight_smile:

As anyone here with a US iTunes account able to get Family Sharing to work?

You can’t family share across regions if that’s where you’re going with this. I tried :frowning:

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Yes I wasn’t aware it wasn’t possible until I tried but you’re 100% correct.