<story><title>Discontinuing FlickType Keyboard for iPhone</title><url>https://twitter.com/FlickType/status/1427292830523744257</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mthoms</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s another angle to the App Store scam: Family Sharing.&lt;p&gt;Most people don&amp;#x27;t know this but the &amp;quot;Parent&amp;quot; (read:credit card holder) of a family sharing account can&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;see&lt;/i&gt;, let alone cancel, &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; subscriptions a minor on the account has purchased.&lt;p&gt;Let that sink in for a second. Apple will happily charge the parents&amp;#x27; credit card a &lt;i&gt;weekly&lt;/i&gt; recurring fee but there is nowhere in their interface (on device nor on the web) where the parent can even &lt;i&gt;see&lt;/i&gt; that subscription.[0]&lt;p&gt;Apple expects &lt;i&gt;the child&lt;/i&gt; to go into their interface and cancel the recurring subscription. Something many (most?) adults find confusing. In my case, the child just deleted the App when the trial was over. Which is of course perfectly logical thinking. No bueno.&lt;p&gt;So if the child is away at school (as in my case), or the phone gets left at a friend&amp;#x27;s house, or worse... stolen. The only way to get it cancelled is to call them.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s more to this story, including details on how the built in parental controls are intentionally crippled (IMHO) but I&amp;#x27;ve got to run. In summary: The entire &amp;quot;Family Sharing&amp;quot; system is built to rip off people while still maintaining plausible deniability.&lt;p&gt;[0] A senior Apple rep told me this is for privacy reasons. But two things: the minor should have no expectation of privacy when spending their parents money (how is that a &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt; thing?). And secondly, Apple &lt;i&gt;does&lt;/i&gt; email a receipt for the subscription to the card holder... so the privacy excuse was pure bullshit. In my case I missed the email because I have more than 6 or 7 recurring Apple subscriptions. I do take partial blame because of that. But I&amp;#x27;ve still not been given a good reason why a parent can&amp;#x27;t easily cancel a childs subscription.</text></comment>
<story><title>Discontinuing FlickType Keyboard for iPhone</title><url>https://twitter.com/FlickType/status/1427292830523744257</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>makecheck</author><text>It’s such a “perfect” circle of non-communication that benefits only the fruit company, isn’t it?&lt;p&gt;- Can I update my app &lt;i&gt;inside&lt;/i&gt; your store?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I find out why?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I find out who or what makes this decision?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I update my app &lt;i&gt;outside&lt;/i&gt; your store?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I contact my customers?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I even &lt;i&gt;identify&lt;/i&gt; my customers in order to help them?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I directly give my own customers a refund?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can I be removed from your list of featured apps?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can customers prevent this one app from being auto-updated into brokenness?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;- Can you tell customers that this new brokenness is &lt;i&gt;your&lt;/i&gt; fault and not the developer’s?  Fruit company: No.&lt;p&gt;And on, and on, and on, and on.&lt;p&gt;This is a completely absurd system that has never, ever, &lt;i&gt;ever&lt;/i&gt; benefited customers &lt;i&gt;or&lt;/i&gt; developers nearly as much as fruit companies.&lt;p&gt;Congress can’t act soon enough.</text></comment>