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How to turn off in-app purchases on your iPad

The Apple iPad has been getting a lot of publicity lately – not all of it good. Danny Kitchen from Bristol ran up a bill of £1700 on in-app purchases while playing the game Zombies V Ningas. The 5-year old’s dad entered his password so his son could download a free app and he bought 17 additional weapons within the game at a cost of £69.99 a time.

Apple has promised to refund the money, but it’s a warning to parents with young children to
keep a close eye on what they are using the iPad for and also that a free app might prove very costly.

Luckily, Apple’s built safeguards into the iPad, so it’s very easy to prevent in-app purchases.

iPad Restrictions menu

Head to Settings – General – Restrictions. Click Enable Restrictions and you’ll be asked to enter a password. Under Allowed Content you’ll see an option for In-App Purchases, slide this to Off.

By default once you’ve entered your password you can download apps within a 15 minute window without entering it again. Flick it to Require Password to Immediately and every time a new app is purchased your password will be required.

Within the Restrictions menu you can also limit what features your child can access, if you’ve got very young children you might not want them to use the browser so there’s no chance of them accessing restricted content. You can also turn off the Camera, FaceTime, iTunes, Installing Apps, Deleting Apps, Siri and Explicit Language, simply by flicking the sliders from On to Off.  To restore access to all the features re-enter the Restrictions menu and click Disable Restrictions.

Apple advises not sharing your password with your children. But if you’ve got older children, it’s also worth chatting to them, so they are aware that in-app purchases cost money.

 

 

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