Summary
- The “Ask to Buy” feature in Apple’s Family Sharing does not prompt for authorization for redownloading previously downloaded apps.
- Young Family Sharing members are smart enough to work around restrictions for downloading apps without consent, undermining the purpose of Ask to Buy.
- Apple has not addressed the oversight in Ask to Buy, leaving users to resort to band-aid fixes that detract from the Family Sharing experience.
Since Apple debuted Family Sharing in 2014, redownloading any member’s apps has been a staple of this handy feature. The problem is that the “Ask to Buy” prompt can be easily mitigated when redownloading an app from someone else’s purchase history.
Ask to Buy Doesn’t Screen Previously Downloaded Apps
My niece is the only iPhone user in her family. Her parents and siblings all have Android phones, so uncle Chris (that’s me) felt compelled to come to the rescue. I’ve been using Apple’s Family Sharing feature for years to share apps, subscriptions, media, and iCloud storage with my parents, and I still had three slots left, so I went ahead and added her to my family group.
She’s underage, so her parents configured her iPhone with Screen Time limitations to prevent her from downloading apps without approval. But, alas, she and her friend wasted no time overcoming this restriction, and it’s the stupidest workaround you could imagine.
She literally went into the family purchase history, found the TikTok app I previously downloaded via my account, hit the download button—and boom, done! I wasn’t prompted to allow this despite being the family organizer and have turned on Ask to Buy for her account to approve spending and downloads from my device. The Ask to Buy feature was the chief reason her parents allowed me to add her to my Family Sharing group in the first place.
One Heck of a Workaround
So I went in to review my Family Sharing, Ask to Buy, and Screen Time settings. Everything looked in order; the child account was permitted to redownload its own previously downloaded apps and those that adults in the family sharing group had ever downloaded.
What surprised me was the realization that Family Sharing won’t prompt the user to authorize the redownload via Face ID or have the family organizer do it via Ask to Buy. I know this is by design, but why pester the user if they have previously approved the download?
iOS automatically turns on the Ask to Buy feature for anyone in the Family Sharing group under the age of 13. The operating system also turns off Ask to Buy once their Apple account shows they have turned 13. To manage Ask to Buy, go to Settings > Family, touch a family member’s name, and select “Ask to Buy.”
If a child’s account attempts to redownload an app from someone else’s purchase history, Ask to Buy should stop them until the family organizer approves the action. But Ask to Buy doesn’t even spring into action! That sounds to me like a huge oversight.
I’m not alone in this; a casual search of online forums like Reddit and the Apple Support Community unearthed a bunch of complaints from disgruntled users. Apple is aware of this but has done nothing to address the situation. Complaints about Family Sharing are almost as old as the feature itself; one post about this on StackExchange is nearly ten years old!
Band-Aid Fixes
One way to “fix” this (until Apple addresses the situation) would be to hide offensive apps in a child’s download history, but that won’t stop them from redownloading hidden apps through their App Store pages. Another would be to configure the Screen Time parental controls to disallow app installs and block the App Store.
To turn off all App Store purchases and redownloads on an iPhone, go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > iTunes & App Store Purchases > Installing Apps. However, enabling those limitations will degrade the Family Sharing experience for that person.
You could also create a whole new child account without a payment method defined and no previously downloaded apps in history just for Family Sharing. While these fixes are certainly better than nothing, they’re a major pain in the you-know-what and not really worth the effort.
My guess is as good as yours, but this whole thing might have something to do with Apple letting developers opt into making their apps shareable through Family Sharing. Whatever the underlying issue, I hope this design oversight gets resolved as soon as possible because a half-baked Ask to Buy defeats the purpose for families with children.
Family Sharing Works Great Until It Doesn’t
Other Family Sharing grievances are outside the scope of this article, but they become evident once you start using the feature. A cursory look across online forums reveals the kinds of stupid problems people have encountered over the years with Family Sharing:
- Not receiving updates for apps downloaded from other family members’ purchase histories after exiting Family Sharing.
- There is no way to exit Family Sharing and retain access to subscriptions, including shared iCloud storage.
- Family members can wipe your device in Find My if they know your account password.
- There is no cross-platform functionality for mixed households that use iOS and Android.
- There are no apps or activity monitoring limits for adults in the family group.
- Not all apps and subscriptions are available for Family Sharing.
- Only the family organizer gets invoices for shared purchases.
- Other members can abuse location tracking.
To be clear, I’m not complaining for the sake of complaining. I actually told Apple about my dissatisfaction with Family Sharing via the feedback form at apple.com/feedback. That being said, however, I’m not holding my breath that the company will take negative feedback seriously and fix Family Sharing anytime soon.
The Ask to Buy feature is one of the best reasons to use Family Sharing. But with kids being able to outsmart parents with such a simple Ask to Buy workaround, Family Sharing isn’t worth the time setting it up. Because, what’s the point of Family Sharing and controlling downloads if Ask to Buy can be mitigated in such a cheap fashion?
