To avoid charges on their credit card that is linked with their Apple ID, many parents use the iTunes feature called Allowances, which allows them to put a set amount of credit on their account every month that can be sent to their kids so they can make purchases on iTunes or the App Store. However, parents will no longer have this luxury within iTunes.
Apple announced on Thursday that iTunes Allowances will end on May 25. For those who have existing allowances in their account, those allowances will remain there until they're completely used.
This doesn't mean that parents won't be able to still manage how much their children are spending on their smartphones. Instead of Allowances, Apple recommends that parents use Family Sharing.
Family Sharing is the iPhone, iPad and Mac feature available for iOS 8 and later that allows six people to share content without them having to share accounts. This allows families to share photos from a birthday party or the family calendar so that everyone knows what day they have baseball practice or ballet.
With Family Sharing, one person is the family organizer who agrees to pay for all the iTunes, iBooks and App Store purchases, and who invites the other five family members to join. Anything purchased — whether it's a song, movie or app — will then appear in the "Purchased" tab in iTunes or the App Store so that each family member can download that content if they wish. Each member still uses their own Apple ID.
Think your child will still make all the in-app purchases they want? Turn on the "Ask to Buy" feature, which will alert the family organizer when that member is trying to make a purchase. The family organizer can then approve or deny that item.
To set up this feature on your mobile device, go to Settings > iCloud > Set Up Family Sharing. You will then have to follow the steps to complete this process. Mac users go to Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud, and then select Set Up Family.
At least there still is a way to manage children's spending on their mobile devices; just the way users do it is now slightly different. iTunes Allowances was a more hidden feature anyway, whereas more people might have heard of Family Sharing as it applies to Apple Music.
If users don't want to go the Family Sharing route or send money to people outside of their five other family members, they can still send and use iTunes gift cards.
Source: Apple
