This might be intent, but I attribute it to Apple’s rigid and outdated backend.īesides in-app purchases, Apple notes you can’t share songs that you added to iTunes Match from sources other than the iTunes Store. Other in-app purchases, like unlocking features to make a free app effectively like the same app that’s purchased outright at that price, should be sharable. But it’s not the kind of page people visit and memorize, and the lack of in-app purchase sharing makes sense only in some cases, like purchasing game coins or certain per-app upgrade features, such as a subscription. Nope.Īpple does make clear on what’s sharable with Family Sharing, so it’s not misleading. He assumed that his wife, part of the same Family Sharing group, would also be able to activate those in-app purchases. He downloaded some free apps to test them out, and then decided to upgrade to the paid version of the app via in-app purchases. Macworld reader Dan encountered a different problem with Family Sharing. Tap the cloud download icon to download it.Tap the account icon, which may be your avatar, in the upper-right corner.If you try to use the app’s page, you see the retail price, and if you click the price, you’ll be charged. The most galling one is that if one person purchases an app that supports Family Sharing- not all apps do-then you’d think anyone else in the Family Sharing group would simply go to the App Store page for that app and click to download it? Incorrect, sorry. This bites users on a regular basis, because seemingly intuitive and obvious behavior isn’t supported with Family Sharing. (For instance, you can’t migrate purchases among accounts you control or merge multiple accounts.) Family Sharing remains poorly implemented for most users years after its introduction, seemingly because Apple’s back-end systems that manage iTunes, the App Store, and other purchases and ownership is so woefully out of date. I am not a fan of Apple’s Family Sharing option, and I’m not alone among technology writers. With Apple’s Family Sharing program, you can share iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family plan, and an iCloud storage plan with up to five people.

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