For any app store purchase, including purchases from inside an app, you have to enter in your password the first time you make a purchase, but your password activation only remains good for a little while afterwards, and in particular will expire after the idevice goes to sleep. So Thurrott and those others either made a purchase and handed the iDevice back to their kids, who then racked up all those costs before letting it go to sleep, or else they gave their kids their app store passwords.
Either way, they essentially handed their kids a credit card for an online purchase and didn't check up on them. It's a little hard to feel sorry for them on this, or to blame Apple too much on this point. For most apps, blocking in-app purchases will require you to enter a 4-digit override (much like the parental controls on your TV) and then you still need your app store password. In Tap Fish, if you have purchases blocked, you are sent to their web site and prompted to install more of their other apps, some of which you must pay for, in order to get "free" fish bucks. Turning off app installation is a separate restriction that might not be turned on. So the Tap Fish people are definitely predatory, in much the same way as your typical carnival game. > From: John Duncan Yoyo <johnduncany...@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: Just How Bad is Google's Mismanagement of the Android Market? > > On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 8:36 AM, John Duncan Yoyo > <johnduncany...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> >> Tap Fish found a way around this limitation on the touch. Apple knows it. >> Apple refunded the $900 fish bill without much of a fight. Thurrott got >> satisfaction rather quickly from Apple. He had to call on a iPad Touch that >> was under warranty to have someone to complain to since the App store >> doesn't seem to have phone support. >> >> Other's have had this problem as well. > > > Link to kid who spent 1200 on Tap Fish fish. > http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/tap-fish-7-year-old-racks-1-200-itunes-2621825.html > > What Tap Fish/Bayview Labs exploited is that you need to turn off in App > purchases on your device- (iphone, ipod touch). I would suspect that lots > of people who thought that they blocked purchases missed this one. Here is > how. > > Settings > General > Restrictions > In-App Purchases > OFF > > Could someone with an iPad see if that setting is there on on by default as > well. > -- > John Duncan Yoyo > -------------------------------o) ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
