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- In-App Purchases and The Smurfberry Affair
Not all is fun and games in the App Store, especially in some freemium titles, where children are racking up credit card charges via in-app purchases of various game add-ons. One little girl cost mom and dad $1,400 in virtual “Smurfberries,” and it wasn't even one of Gargamel's plots. Apple is reportedly looking in to changing the 15-minute window that allowed this to happen, but in my opinion, they can’t move fast enough to address this serious loophole in App Store policy.
I don't blame the kids for this problem. In-game money equating to real world currency is a relatively recent phenomenon. Those gold coins you get in the Mario series do not add up to real dollars and cents. Kids don't always have the skill to understand the intricacies of commerce and fantasy. The U.S. government recognizes this vulnerability and has laws in place to protect against it, such as The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and the Children's Television Act. Content providers must generally take measures to make sure parental permission is given for access to websites, and that clear distinctions are made between programming and advertising. The same kind of care should be taken with regards to the App Store.
I also don't blame the parents. Apps that could have material not suited for children display clear warnings during purchase. But purchasing a game geared towards children that could give your wallet an unexpected hit via in-app purchase don't require such a warning. Parents initially type in their password to download a game, but may not be aware of the existence of the 15-minute window in which Apple (wrongfully, in my opinion) allows additional purchases. How many of us have been in a situation where we need to entertain a child and quickly buy an app and then hand over the phone for some simple babysitting?
Game developers definitely deserve some of the blame. You don't need to be Brainy Smurf to figure out that a $99.00 in-app purchase on a game geared towards children is a recipe for trouble. However, developers are in the business of making money, and they'll push the limits when they can, so long as it doesn’t incur too much ill will among the buying public.
Apple takes 30% of the revenue from an in-app purchase, but deserves at least 70% of the blame for this ongoing problem. The company needs to eliminate completely the grace period after entering one's password. I can specify how long until my screen locks on both Mac and iOS devices. However, on iOS, Apple gives no warning when you buy an app or make an in-app purchase that your account will remain open to other purchases for the next several minutes without requiring re-authentication, and provides no way to change or disable this window. This is a recipe for trouble.
Apple also needs to reconsider its ratings and warning system. Smurfs’ Village is only rated 4+, for example. Any game that allows in-app purchases should have a specific warning to help parents know that the game may not be not child-friendly due to potential accidental in-app purchases. While Capcom has put a warning in the description of the app, other programs have not done so. That should be required in the App Store and displayed under other content warnings.
Finally, Apple really needs to allow user accounts or profiles like it does in OS X. While iPhones tend to be used by only one individual, iPads and iPod touches are often shared among family members. I should be able to hand my iPad or iPhone to a youngster and have a full suite of parental controls and lockouts available by simply logging out of my profile and logging into a kid-friendly one.
Until such changes are made, here are a few tips to prevent in-app sticker shock:
- Set up a separate Apple ID for a child for which you might purchase apps and don't associate your credit card with this account. Use either a gift card or Apple's iTunes Store allowance to fund the account. This will limit the spending potential for accidental purchases.
- Turn off in-app purchases globally by going to Settings>General>Restrictions. Once you set a passcode to enable restrictions, you can turn off in-app purchasing.
- After making a purchase, sign out of your iTunes account by going to Settings>Store>Sign Out.
While Apple appears to be sympathetic to parents who have been victimized by in-app purchases, often offering refunds to those who complain, the fundamental flaw still exists. Until Apple provides a more satisfactory solution, it’s up to parents to remain vigilant and follow the steps outlined above.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):
- How To Ride The Freemium App Wave To Success
- What App Distributors Can Learn from the Ringtone Craze
- How Carriers Can Crack the App Discoverability Nut
Переслать - iOS 101: How to Use Multitasking on Your iPhone or iPad
Since the release of iOS 2.0, users were annoyed that Apple hadn't yet implemented multitasking — the ability to run more than one application at a time — on the iPhone. Fast forward two years to the release of iOS 4.0, when Apple finally introduced the feature. Some users may not yet have a good grasp on how to use iOS multitasking, yet, though. For those users, here’s multitasking explained.
Activating Multitasking
When you’re running an application that supports multitasking (all of Apple’s apps do, as well as many from the App Store), all you have to do is exit the application like you normally would, using the Home button. The application is automatically suspended and is waiting in the background for you to open it back up again. Not all apps are actually suspended though; there are some applications which will continue running even when they’re closed, such as music players and navigation apps. There’s no need to treat these applications differently, though. If the developers of the app have included support for running in the background, it will happen automatically.
The same thing happens when you receive a call on your iPhone; the application is suspended and sent to the background, ready for when you finish talking.
Returning to an App
When you’re ready to go back to an app waiting in the background, simple press the Home button twice quickly. This opens the multitasking bar, which shows you all the applications which are currently open on your device.
Simply tap an app’s icon to open it back up. It will open as usual, but will resume from exactly how it was when you closed it (if it supports auto-resume). For instance, if you were using a to-do list application, and you were halfway through editing an item, the app will open at the editing screen again and you’ll be able to carry on from where you were. This also happens if you come back from a call. The app you had open when the call came in will return in the same place it was.
Close Running Applications
In some rare cases, you may want to stop an application which is waiting in the background. To do this, open up the multitasking bar with a double-tap of the Home button. Then, find the app you want to close, and press and hold its icon. The apps in the bar will wiggle, like when you organize the Home screen, and red minus icons will show up above each app. Just tap a minus icon, and the corresponding application will be closed. It won’t be in the background, so the next time you open it, it will start from the first screen again, not from where you were when you last had it open.
More Multitasking Bar Features
The multitasking bar also houses some other useful features. If you swipe your finger to the right, a set of controls appears which allow you to control any music playing on your device, as well as lock the orientation of the screen. The iPad also features two sliders, one for the volume and one for the screen brightness. The iPod controls work with your device’s iPod music as you’d expect, but they also work for a music application running in the background. For example, start listening to the Pandora app and the controls will work with Pandora.
To stop your screen rotating when you turn the device (useful for reading in bed), tap the grey icon on the left. That’s the orientation lock switch, which determines whether the screen will rotate or not.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req'd):
- Platform Makers Placing Big Bets on In-App Payments
- 5 Ways Apple's In-App Purchase Rule Could Come Back to Bite
- Facebook Built an App for Feature Phones. Should You?
Переслать - MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh
Over the weekend the Apple rumour mill went into overdrive with talk of a MacBook Pro refresh arriving later this week. AppleInsider reported yesterday that Apple informed resellers to expect mysterious new deliveries any day now:
…the Mac maker this weekend began informing some of its larger European resellers that they could expect delivery of sealed product pallets to their brick-and-mortar stores as early as Monday, which coincides with one of ten federal holidays (President’s Day) in the United States.
Secretive as always, Apple has also made it clear that the shipments are not to be opened ahead of an official announcement from the Mother Ship, issuing warnings of repercussions (official retailer license cancellations) to those who don’t do as they’re told.
Adding further fuel to the fire, an article today (also from AppleInsider reports that Apple has extended the shipment times for all U.S. online orders of MacBook Pros to three-to-five business days, while European supplies dwindled even earlier:
…Apple’s major European distributors ran out [of] MacBook Pros near the top of the month, regional resellers have not been able to place new orders for the notebooks for over two weeks, and Apple has not shipped a single unit of its own to the channel during the same period of time.
And finally, Engadget adds to the weekend rumor-fest with news that Best Buy has already added new Apple laptop SKUs to its inventory.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Apple rumor party if there wasn’t at least one big claim thrown in for good measure, and this time it comes from CNET, which speculates that the long-awaited and much-anticipated Light Peak technology could make its debut in the new MacBook Pro lineup. But how likely is it that Light Peak is finally here?
Light Peak Primer
I first wrote about Light Peak here on TheAppleBlog back in 2009, shortly after Intel unveiled the technology at the IDF Conference in San Francisco. Devised by Apple and developed by Intel, Light Peak is a data transfer technology that promises speeds far in excess of the still-not-ubiquitous USB 3.0 (USB 3.0 will manage a throughput of 3 GB/s, while Light Peak teases a blistering 10 GB/s).
What’s more, Light Peak is designed to allow for multiple simultaneous device connections on a single port. Only last week, AppleInsider’s Neil Hughes reported on a recent patent application Apple made, titled “Magnetic Connector with Optical Signal Path” detailing the inclusion of a fiber optic line built-in to the existing MagSafe power connector, which certainly sounds like a possible implementation of Light Peak.
No one denies that Light Peak represents a significant new technology, but it seems to me that if Apple is about to launch something so revolutionary, it’d be keen to really talk it up. That means a special media event n bursting at the seams with the usual hyperbole.
New MacBooks are very likely being released in a matter of days, and while there’s some chance they might be more in keeping with the design of the MacBook Air — sporting longer battery life and flash-based memory — the lack of any announced special event suggests to me that there’s nothing more to the refresh than that. A thinner MacBook Pro with a wedge-shape and flash memory doesn’t require a media event; it would be a retread of the MacBook Air event last year.
And Finally…
If you’re dedicated to finding evidence of Light Peak’s imminent release, look no further than an article yesterday from MacRumors asking “Could the iPad 2 Be Getting Light Peak?”
MacRumors’ Arnold Kim muses over the rumored existence of a “mystery port” seen in some iPad 2 case designs, and says the inclusion of Light Peak in the next iPad “…could help explain some particularly incongruous rumors we’ve been hearing about the iPad 2 over the past few months.”
I can’t help but think of it this way; the iPad 2 announcement is likely only a few months away, and if both this year’s new MacBook Pro and iPad were to feature Light Peak, surely those product announcements would be made together? Of course, Apple is nothing if not unpredictable, so don’t count out Light Peak altogether.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req'd):
- Why Apple Hasn't Sewn Up the Tablet Market — Yet
- Transient Apps: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 2
- Rogue Devices: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 1
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