[cafed00d]

This post should be evangelized like gospel! We MUST make App Store rules _even_ stricter. I hadn't thought about the nefarious patterns particularly targeted towards kids apps until I read this.

Heck, after hearing about Zoom's debacle with the Facebook SDK, I feel like Apple should make it impossible for 3rd party devs to use non-Apple approved SDKs.

but sigh, I know I'm afraid this viewpoint is not shared by many in the developer world.

[nrmitchi]

I don't think many people are against prohibiting and/or restricting the use of dark patterns, and trying to push back on absolutely horrific user experiences. I don't think anyone is arguing that apps should be able to target and trick children into spending money, especially with the current "The walled-garden is to ensure everything is safe" argument.

There is a difference between "Your app doesn't exactly follow our branding rules and you have a link that goes to a non-app web page", and "Your app is specifically designed to trick people into spending money and to spy on children".

[ksk]

Or, you can have multiple app stores and kid-friendly app stores will specially curate apps to make sure there is no adult content, or other unwanted features. We already do this with a wide variety of physical goods.

Apple doesn't get the source code for the App anyway, so a third party can perform the same type of automated + manual review that Apple does. Its time to open up the app store to competition. As a consumer, if you don't trust a particular app store, great, don't use it.

[threeseed]

Epic for example is only going to allow Fortnite to be on their store. So how you are going to convince kids to use only specific app stores?

And then if Apple is forced to regulate what is and isn't "kid-friendly" then isn't that just opening them up to the same criticism they have right now.

[ksk]

There are several ways to approach the curation/kid-friendly problem. You can have simple curation apps (which are banned in the current appstore AFAIK) that are not full stores but simply point to an app store (apple or non-apple). You can have websites that link to apps that have been vetted. On the iOS side, there could be a specific kid-mode that prevents certain APIs to be used. I'm thinking no video, audio, location/tracking services, no ads (unless the ad-network takes responsibility), etc.

Apple won't brand any particular app-store as kid-friendly, or otherwise endorse them.

[AnthonyMouse]

Another solution is for kids to have an account which is restricted in which app stores it can install from, or simply can't install any new apps. Then the kid can't install Fortnite. But the kid can go to the parent and have the parent install Fortnite, if that's what the parent wants.

[izacus]

Why won't anyone think of the children and just ban every single thing that might make their parents work!

[2muchcoffeeman]

That’s not really a fair argument. Parents have been over worked for decades. But 30, 20, even 10 years ago (first iPad was released 10 years ago!) you couldn’t accidentally buy digital rubbish.

The kids sat in front of a TV and you had to beg your parents for toys.

Now toddlers can discover things for themselves and frankly a lot of content for kids is trash. We haven’t caught up with how to deal with this.

[izacus]

The author still wants Apple to ban software for everyone on the whole world - Americans, Indians, young people, old people just to conform to their ideas of what their children are supposed to consume. Whole world and everyone.

They're not calling for a separate play store, restricted subsection - but they want every single person to be limited so they don't have to be careful about what exactly their child might accidentally download.

This is the epitome of the worst "think of the children" argument.

[user5994461]

FYI: This is how TV works in Europe. Ads are banned during children programs, early morning before school and evening after school.

Sometimes a blanket ban is a good thing.

[Tainnor]

You deal with this by not giving your one-year old an iPad.

[Spivak]

Yeah! Sit them down in front of a TV to watch reruns of cartoons or give them a magazine to read both full of ads for toys like the good ole days!

[r00fus]

They could gasp play with other things like legos or drawing/construction. My twin girls in gradeschool love building stuff, roleplay and make believe.

Honestly that’s what I used to do as a kid when stuck indoors (which is more prevalent these days)

[reader_mode]

>But 30, 20, even 10 years ago (first iPad was released 10 years ago!) you couldn’t accidentally buy digital rubbish.

That's not true - I clearly remember those TV telenovelas arround here having a paid line where you could get a summary of next episode and the number advertised during the show. The only people I ever heard about calling the service was kids racking up parents phone bills.

[Tainnor]

When I was a kid I found a very sketchy game on the teletext where you had to repeatedly call some phone line. My parents ended up with a 600 bucks phone bill.

I also repeatedly fell for weird "order this set of dinosaur cards for free (but then it's an ongoing subscription)" kinds of scams.

All of that stuff was annoying. And my parents ended up taking appropriate measures (blocking paid phone numbers, or just talking to me, for example). Nobody died because of it.

Kids have always been good targets for scams. Nothing new under the sun.

[user5994461]

You were lucky that you parents were well off. There are many families what live paycheck to paycheck and wouldn't be able to feed the children after they lost 600 bucks in a phone scam.

[Tainnor]

sure, that's a valid point (although, in the worst case, we do have social security nets over here). the point is more that kids falling for scams is nothing new.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I’ve seen those dodgy subscription services, but never in relation to anything I was actually interested in as a kid. Maybe they were not as prevalent where I grew up.

But now, everyone with an iPad or smartphone is a target. That’s new.