Recently there’s been plenty of news coverage of young kids running up ridiculous bills on their parents’ credit cards when playing what they thought were free games on the iPad or iPhone.
In fact they were playing ‘freemium’ games – games that are free to install but offer numerous In-App purchase options that can quickly rack up charges into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Often these In-App purchases allow the player to advance more quickly within a game or to have access to better and more advanced features. So they’re very appealing, especially for youngsters who don’t really understand or think about how the charges incurred may mount up.
I’ve experienced this first-hand with my daughter a few years back and heard from countless friends and acquaintances when they’ve had similar experiences.
There’s an easy way to put a stop to this on the iPad – to disable the ability to make In-App purchases. Here’s how:
– Open the Settings app and tap on the General section in the left sidebar.
– Scroll down a bit in the right hand side area of the page, until you see the ‘Restrictions’ bar (as shown above) and tap on that