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Eleven-year-old Accidentally Downloads $1000 App
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We should get rid of the stupid Parental Controls in OS X. I've already been locked out once, and it may happen again. For some reason, Safari suddenly decided that several of the Websites that I'd been using were inappropriate for me to view. These included at least one federal government Website.
The Parental Controls weren't even activated, at least not that I could tell. The only thing that was running was a keyword filter for Safari, which I didn't intentionally activate. Parental Controls have no place in an operating system that is being used for real work. It's one more thing that can go wrong, and it's a waste of disk space.
Parents should learn to supervise their children while a child is using the computer, and if they don't care to supervise or aren't educated enough to understand how that computer works, they shouldn't own a computer. I am so tired of hearing these news stories about how the parents "didn't know" that their child was doing something illegal or was being bullied for months. How can you not know what's going on in your own home, on the computer that you bought?
A computer was not meant to be a toy that could be used by anybody above a 2nd-grade reading level. These same whiny parents then turn around and blame the social networking companies, blogs (used as another name for "chat rooms"), cell phone companies, schoolteachers, and anybody else that could be connected to their children through technology, but they never seem to want to blame themselves for being bad parents who like to forget that their children exist. Considering the number of downright-dumb parents that I've run into, I'm surprised that the society does as well as it does. These people are frankly too stupid to live, and they're the reason why most everything these days comes with disclaimers, warning labels, or nanny features that try to prevent you from hurting yourself and others.
There's even this latest thing that demands restaurants start putting on their menus how many Calories are in each of their foods, because the dumb people don't understand that eating fried foods and sitting on their butts all day can eventually make you fat. I've been deliberately ordering foods with the warning labels just for fun. Oh, this has 2,100 Calories? Is that bad? The nannies want you to say yes, you say? Good, I'll take that and a large soda, and how about a couple of sides too! Uno Chicago Grill was one of the restaurants labeled for having too many Calories, yet after 10 years of eating what the nannies say are dangerous foods, I'm still not fat. Stay out of my favorite foods!
People should be forced to take responsibility for their own lives much more often, and this nonsense of allowing frivolous lawsuits should end.
I like the idea of being able to "buy" a free app on the phone without a password. My iTunes account password is a long mix of letters and numbers, and easy to type on a physical keyboard, but it's a pain in the ass to type out on the phone's funky keyboard just to update or grab free stuff.
As for the OP, I think Apple would have suffered a pretty bad PR rap if they didn't refund them.
As for the OP, I think Apple would have suffered a pretty bad PR rap if they didn't refund them.
I think gettin' a head start on the bar exam would be a great use of that kid's time. He could be our next Supreme Court justice. 
Kids hating kids. Imagine!
ChrisGonzales90: You've ruined my week with that image!
Apple should have safeguards in place to ensure apps are not downloaded without a password when the cost exceeds $20. I even contest the addition of 1¢ to a bill when it was not part of the contract.
I say they should have kept it. Let him study up, take the bar, become a lawyer and pay for it himself.
What people want is more choice. They're not asking Apple to disable app purchases by default, just put in some simple safeguards that make mistakes like this less likely.
You really believe that failing to log out should be a $1000 mistake? For an app they'll never use? What if the app cost $10,000? $100,000? $1 million? Would they need to go take out a loan and pay spend the rest of their lives paying off the app loan? It's a good thing Apple disagrees with you.
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OMG!!!!! Two days ago i left a post saying that it was my brother and he was 10 not 11. But as it turns out, it wasn't my brother but he did the same exact thing and my mom emailed itunes........ thats sooooooooooo funny
Surprising how heated the debate on this can get - I think it's a great story.
Boy makes mistake (as does mother, in not supervising him closely enough). The mother asks for help from Apple, and Apple complies even though they don't have to. The boy, and his mother are very unlikely to make the same mistake again - and the same holds for any parent reading this story!
Sounds like a win - win - win - win scenario to me!
Boy makes mistake (as does mother, in not supervising him closely enough). The mother asks for help from Apple, and Apple complies even though they don't have to. The boy, and his mother are very unlikely to make the same mistake again - and the same holds for any parent reading this story!
Sounds like a win - win - win - win scenario to me!
You'd still need a credit card linked to the account. If I tried to charge a $1,000 app over iTunes, the purchase would be declined. The person must first make a decision to authorize a purchase that is considered to be large, then link that credit card to iTunes, and then to secure that information or not.
If I leave $1,000 in cash on the street in front of my house, should I blame the government for not helping me when that money gets taken? Of course not, because it's my fault for leaving something valuable and recognizable where I knew that it could be taken.
Likewise, if you cracked my iTunes account password and tried to run up some big charges, you wouldn't get very far. I take the responsibility of reducing my risk by not leaving a large line of credit available where a simple mishandling of my electronic account information could result in a detrimental financial liability.
the fifteen minutes he was referring to was the second part of the guys question on the time period/grace period until it requires a password again, not it took him 15 minutes to figure out how to do this on an android. his sentence structure while poor, was understandable. your critical thinking skills seem to be lacking, however.
Well, if you leave it on the street, that's equivalent to discarding it. That's not an analogous situation here. Leaving it on your porch, which is still private property, would be more analogous. Getting your car stolen because you left it in a bad neighborhood would be still more analogous. In the car scenario, where you have a piece of property that's extremely traceable, then of course the police should (and would) help you recover it.
The "misclick to buy an app" scenario is even easier and simpler, and it's much less irresponsible than any of these other hypotheticals. I'd guess that 90% or more of iPhone users have a credit card linked to their iTunes account. You believe that there is an unlimited ceiling on how much money someone should lose as a result of linking a credit card to their account. If there were an app that cost a million dollars, and someone misclicked and bought it, you apparently believe it's right and good that they spend the rest of their life paying it off. I'm glad that Apple disagrees with you.
The notion that people shouldn't link their accounts to iTunes or shouldn't authorize large purchases (incidentally, if they followed your $1000 rule, they'd be out of luck if the app cost $900 rather than $1000, yes?) because Apple should just tell them to f off if they misclick like this...why? What's the benefit? How hard is it to give a refund? If it's really important, have them come to an Apple store and show that they didn't install the app.
Had you or someone else made the case that this was a mistake, just maybe a $20 mistake or even a $50 mistake rather than a $1000 mistake, then I'd say that's reasonable enough. I am not saying that people should take no personal responsibility for these sorts of mistakes. But $1000 is just crazy when these mistakes are as simple as a couple of clicks.
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There should be no refunds.
It's not fair to the developer when users are irresponsible.
This is 1-Click from Amazon.com
It's not fair to the developer when users are irresponsible.
This is 1-Click from Amazon.com
Hello?!
Why it is Apples job to "control" kids?
Typical attitude these days:
Somebody "f#$%^%$ up and it's just gotta be somebody elses fault!
There's got to be a way that they can sue Apple for several millions over this.
After all Apple allowed somebody to log into itunes.
Me too. Appstore ask me to enter my pw every time I purchase something from my iPhone or my iPod Touch (even if it's a free app).
Well, I guess the app contain an official exam and your results get posted directly... Obviously, it's not only a "text book" kind of app...