I got a little bit trashed last night, night
I got a little bit wasted, yeah yeah
I got a little bit mashed last night, night
I got a little shhh faced it, yeah yeah
‘Hangover’ by Taio Cruz
Do you want your tween or teen listening to this? Do you know what they are listening to?
Red lights should be flashing if your child received an iTunes Gift Card for Christmas. Like the old Record Voucher an iTunes card is a safe bet. The receiver can choose their own gift. It makes perfect sense. But it is not as straight forward as it first seems.
To spend an iTunes Card you need an iTunes Account. An account requires a Credit Card. This means that your child needs access to your Account and your Password to purchase songs and apps. The question is do you give your child your password so that they can use their Gift Card?
Yes? These rules will ensure that your child only downloads ‘appropriate and approved by you’ apps or songs:
1. Your child must ask you each time they wish to download a song or an app
2. You must check that the app or song is age appropriate
No? Restrict your child from making purchases:
1. Touch the “Settings” icon (the one with the gray gears on it) on your iOS device
2. Touch the “General” option on the screen that opens after touching the “Settings” icon.
3. Touch “Enable Restrictions” from the top of the screen.
4. Create a 4-digit code to prevent your child from disabling the restrictions that you are about to set. Type your code a second time to confirm it.
5. Scroll down to the “Allowed Content” section towards the bottom of the “Restrictions” page and turn the “In-app Purchases” switch to the “OFF” position.
Additionally, you might also want to change the “Require Password” option from “15 Minutes” to “Immediately”. This makes sure that every purchase attempt made requires a password confirmation. If it is set to 15 minutes then you only have to enter your password once, any additional purchase within a 15 minute time-frame uses the cached password. Your kid could rack up a lot of app purchases in 15 minutes which is why I recommend setting it to “Immediately”.
There are additional parental controls available for restricting access to mature content, preventing the installation and/or deletion of apps. Check out our article on enabling parental controls for iOS devices for more details.
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/iphoneipodtouchapps/a/The-Dangers-Of-Kids-And-In-App-Purchases.htm
Great info. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon).
I have saved it for later!
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an really long
comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up. Grrrr… well I’m not
writing all that over again. Anyways, just wanted to say fantastic blog!
Sorry that your message disappeared, but thank you kindly for your comment. I have just recently added a Facebook Page to this blog to help spread the word to parents so if you are on FB and would like to help, just click on the Like button at the top right hand corner of the home page I’d be much obliged. Thank you Renata
Just some clarification you can create an iTunes account without a credit card – details here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534
Thank you Tony, that is true, and I will add that to the article. It still begs the question of who controls the password and therefore the approval of age appropriate content. I think a tween needs to ask and have approval of content by a parent before it is downloaded and a teen possibly could be given more trust. Thank you for your contribution, Kind Regards, Renata