Mother Describes the Dark Side of Apple's Family Sharing (wired.com)
- Reference: 0179910890
- News link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/10/30/0242231/mother-describes-the-dark-side-of-apples-family-sharing
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/apples-family-sharing-helps-keep-children-safe-until-it-doesnt/
> A mother with court-ordered custody of her children has described how Apple's Family Sharing feature [1]can be weaponized by a former partner . Apple support staff were unable to assist her when she reported her former partner using the service in controlling and coercive ways... [...] Namely, Family Sharing gives all the control to one parent, not to both equally. The parent not identified as the organizer is unable to withdraw their children from this control, even when they have a court order granting them custody. As one woman's story shows, this can allow the feature which allows it to be weaponized by an abusive former partner.
>
> Wired [2]reports : "The lack of dual-organizer roles, leaving other parents effectively as subordinate admins with more limited power, can prove limiting and frustrating in blended and shared households. And in darker scenarios, a single-organizer setup isn't merely inconvenient -- it can be dangerous. Kate (name changed to protect her privacy and safety) knows this firsthand. When her marriage collapsed, she says, her now ex-husband, the designated organizer, essentially weaponized Family Sharing. He tracked their children's locations, counted their screen minutes and demanded they account for them, and imposed draconian limits during Kate's custody days while lifting them on his own [...] After they separated, Kate's ex refused to disband the family group. But without his consent, the children couldn't be transferred to a new one. "I wrongly assumed being the custodial parent with a court order meant I'd be able to have Apple move my children to a new family group, with me as the organizer," says Kate. But Apple couldn't help. Support staff sympathized but said their hands were tied because the organizer holds the power."
Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/apples-family-sharing-helps-keep-children-safe-until-it-doesnt/
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/apples-family-sharing-helps-keep-children-safe-until-it-doesnt/
Backup your cloud data and move services. (Score:1)
It's really that simple.
I guess she was simpler.
Re:Backup your cloud data and move services. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
And now look at it from the point of the average person and rethink your reaction.
Re:Backup your cloud data and move services. (Score:4, Informative)
Walk into the apple store with your iDevice and have them back it up for you onto media you buy there. then trade in the iDevice for a new iDevice and upload the backed-up data.
Wow, that's really beyond the capabilities of a typical iDevice user? Seriously?
Backups, backups, backups (Score:3)
> [losing] potentially years' worth of photos and videos.
That’s why it’s important to always have local backups of your devices.
Pointless article .. (Score:1)
Whatever happened to parents taking responsibility for their own lives.
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever happened to the ability of a reader to understand an article?
Re:Pointless article .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Did TFA explain why the mother didn't get a court to order her ex to transfer the parental role to her? There are decades of precedent about how to have courts sort out custody disputes and to deal with people who won't cooperate. As an added benefit, it is almost entirely independent of the account provider -- it will work for Apple, Google Samsung, whomever.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, time to make those lawyers just a little richer.
Re: (Score:2)
Would you rather live in a world where you're not allowed to have a lawyer represent you? Or is your brilliant plan to make lawyers literal slaves, working for free, after spending a decade of their lives and six figures of debt to become a lawyer?
Either way, it sounds like paradise.
Complete failure all around (Score:5, Insightful)
This is quite common nowadays, that services are not working, and people are acting stupid.
She should not have assumed that this just gets sorted.
The court should have forced the ex to disband the family group.
The police should come down on him for unauthorised computer espionage.
Apple can help, but they just don't want to.
And obviously the ex is being an ass, but for once, he is not alone in that.
Re:Complete failure all around (Score:5, Insightful)
I am by no means an expert but I do have family court judges as family members. They wield enormous power to legally compel people to do all manor of things that even tangentially impact children in divorce proceedings.
She needs to ask her lawyer to petition the court to require her ex to transfer to her control/ownership of all software as a service and third-party identity provider accounts associated with the children; as she is the primary custodial parent. That should be easy enough to get the court to agree to, and she can easily notify them if he does not comply and cause him to be placed in contempt.
The only place where it gets 'kinda hairy' is things like Netflix where you might have one account with many profiles and there is no way to migrate a profile between one account, but they are separate house holds now under the TOS they can't share any longer anyway. In those cases the account holder is the account holder end of story. Really the lawyers are not this dumb, they can work this stuff out easily, it is just nobody is asking them to. It is way more fun to go run to the media say 'whaa Apple won't help me violate their policies!'
No wonder he left her...
Re: (Score:3)
Are divorce lawyers free in your country? They're certainly not here, and a now-single mother has a frack of a lot of expenses that she no longer gets financial assistance for.
Re: (Score:1)
She has a relationship with her existing divorce lawyer. This is a simple ask, probably a 1hour effort, we are looking 300-600 bucks here.
This is a good example of why no-fault divorce is terrible idea for society. It is expensive and wasteful. Getting divorced is generally the WRONG decision, unless there is actual abuse or infidelity, or criminal activity of some kind.
Re: (Score:2)
> we are looking 300-600 bucks here.
Right. Did you know that most people don't even have $1000 in the bank? And when the ex doesn't comply then she has to shovel more money she may well not have at her lawyer.
This is a good example of why lawyers were a terrible idea for society.
Re: (Score:2)
When there's a significant disparity in income between the spouses, it isn't uncommon for the one making more money to have to pay both lawyers. Especially when them being difficult and controlling is the reason the other party needs the additional lawyer time.
Re: (Score:2)
> Are divorce lawyers free in your country? They're certainly not here, and a now-single mother has a frack of a lot of expenses that she no longer gets financial assistance for.
What do you know about THIS WOMAN's situation? You imagine poverty. You imagine she received nothing in her divorce. You imagine she gets no child support.
This is a family that could afford iDevices for everyone in the family, perhaps she isn't penniless and homeless, and all she has is her priceless photos and videos to sustain her and her children?
There are many options to resolve this problem, but she's prevented from doing any of them because she doesn't want to lose her purchased apps? Really?
The issue
Re: (Score:2)
You clearly do not live in the US. The legal system does NOT do anything about anything (other than child support and alimony) as outlined in a divorce decree.
And, even if they MIGHT do something, you have to wait 12+ months to get on the court's docket, paying thousands of dollars to glorified expensive secretaries in the process while you wait.
The entire system is fucking broken.
Re: (Score:2)
Family court judges have extremely limited power outside of their own state.
Re: (Score:2)
There are federal laws regarding states obeying original custody orders from the court that issued them.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but the $millions of unpaid child support in this country are pretty strong evidence that the ability (or will) to actually enforce these sorts of things in practice is severely lacking.
Re: (Score:2)
> No wonder he left her...
To be fair it seems like they deserve each other. He is a douche, and she is a whiner.
Re: (Score:2)
No wonder he left her...
Victim blaming is not a good look. Nevermind, that's probably your only look.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't had to 'go legal', but I'm acutely aware of the things I'm "in control of", and the things my wife is "in control of". For me Apple is an annoyance, but there are others where there are some financial implications if the "head of the household" decides you're no longer worthy. I haven't looked into it, but _hopefully_ those ones have proper procedures for getting control of groups if you need to...?
In that regard then, Apple are a long way from unique. What maybe is unique about them is their comp
Re: (Score:2)
She doesn't have to take Apple to court, she has to take her ex back to court.
Or, she could have accepted that like everything else in her life post-divorce, she was going to have to start over with Apple as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly.
She can go to the Apple store and get them to download her pics and videos to an external drive, then they can either wipe the phones or trade-in the phones and create a new Family Share plan *without* her ex-husband...
Ultimately her frustration stems from her obsession to not have to re-purchase apps shared in the Family Share with her ex-husband... To be honest, this type of dispute seems to be way too common in modern divorces. I've heard of cases where spouses incur tens of thousands in lawyer b
Re: (Score:3)
> Apple can help, but they just don't want to.
How can Apple help? Because someone in a different situation will likely get screwed over by the exact same policy that Apple would have to enact to help?
Apple can help - you do it by legally compelling them to. As in, you get your lawyer back to family court and get the judge to issue a court order compelling Apple to fix the problem. Apple can do this with a court order (actually, they must).
This is a situation where the courts have to fix it. Any other solution
Re: (Score:2)
And how many millions will Apple spend in court just to make sure that they can do whatever the frack they want with what they consider "their" hardware? Apple is not known for just rolling over because their customers actually need something, their entire ethos as a software company has always been, "We know what's best for you and if you don't like our decision that's too bad."
Re: (Score:2)
Well, why didn't either party's lawyer think to include the Apple account in the list of communal assets to be split? That was on them, not the court.
Likewise, it isn't on Apple to resolve marital disputes. It's on the former spouses, and there are established legal paths to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
> This is quite common nowadays, that services are not working, and people are acting stupid.
> She should not have assumed that this just gets sorted.
> The court should have forced the ex to disband the family group.
> The police should come down on him for unauthorised computer espionage.
> Apple can help, but they just don't want to.
> And obviously the ex is being an ass, but for once, he is not alone in that.
And finally. The real culprit.
Using Apple products in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple can't help. In their privacy-centered world, code is law, and it trumps court of law.
Because, you know, court of law could be an instrument of a tyranny, and Apple can't have it infringing on their users' privacy and other rights.
Re: (Score:2)
She just needs to have a court say she has control of this feature for her children and then send the court order over to apple. Almost certainly if this isn't an out of the box feature to move the account one of their devs can make a back end update to do the needful or apple can have it's day in court to answer why they won't comply with a court order.
Just get new stuff (Score:3)
last line in the summary has the solution. Just get new devices and Apple-IDs. Yes, you may lose some purchases. Big deal. As for photos, you don't have to lose them. They're still on the device. You can of course also share them and put them on a Mac or whatever. You also still have the original devices you can access.
At the end of the day, there is a solution that will cost you a little bit of money and some inconvenience. It's hardly the end of the world. Divorces and such are full of various expenses and inconveniences.
In the overall scheme of things, the problem here is an edge case where the existing implementation doesn't work well. It's not some tragic fatal flaw or anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh give me a break. Apple's implementation of this feature is hardly evil.
My god. You have a very low bar for "evil", so much so as to strip the word of any meaning.
Re: (Score:2)
> Apple could just stop being evil.
Problem: adversary has you in a headlock.
Solution: wait for the adversary to change allegiance.
Re: (Score:1)
That right - leave the victim of the abuse to have to deal with it all. That's the right way to do it.
Or, shock horror, Apple could pull their finger out of their arse and just help this woman - she's already been to court, so frankly they have very little to do.
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe Apple is just smart enough to stay the hell out of someone else's divorce.
Besides, an Apple account is a pretty minor entry in the list of things you have to start over with after a divorce. If that isn't the least of her worries, she did pretty well.
Re: (Score:1)
Can she afford that?
Why should she have to?
This may be an edge case, but there are countless cases where an adult wants - and should have - equal control.
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of features of various kinds don't work how people would like them to work.
Companies can't possibly be reasonably expected to make all the changes required to satisfy everyone.
Hell, in some cases, possibly even this one, people may want a feature to operate in conflicting ways.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm reminded of a breakup I went through and how I just let my ex keep the Apple account. It was a hassle, and I had to buy some things again, but that's life.
The report notes that doing so means losing (Score:2)
[...] potentially years' worth of photos and videos. Yes, "potentially", if you throw them away by not downloading and backing up all photos and videos that are tied to your iCloud Account. Apart from that, Apple's family sharing sucks. You can't even set custom time limits - if my kids asks for more time, I can give it 15 minutes (usually not enough) or 1 hour (usually too much). Same if multiple people use an ipad. Can't even hide or password protect my porn collection in the files app.
Apple does not owe her (Score:1)
The woman has custody of the children, not the account. It sounds as if the account is in his name and she wants control because she has the children. Apple and the husband have no duty to hand it over.
What about suing her ex-husband to remove the children from his account since the only time they use it is when they are with him. Then she can sue again for the husband to pay when the children use her account. Yes, it's slow and expensive: Unfortunately, the courts do not owe her, even when her husba
Re:Apple does not owe her (Score:4, Insightful)
She has custody means she is also the legal custodian of all accounts of the children, completely independent of what her ex-husband thinks, or what Apple's technical solution assumes.
Call the lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)
This is almost certainly a violation of the custody agreement. Call the lawyer, throw the book at him. Because if he is allowed to get away with this abuse, certainly others are happening / will happen, too. Start a GoFundMe if you must. Changes to technology settings won't solve the problem, this requires a courtroom and a judge who will call him out and hold him accountable.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep in mind we are only hearing her side of the issue. Women can be just as vicious as men or even more so. As my ex told me, "women don't believe in limited war."
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Oh, for sure, there can be horrible parties on all sides of divorces, and my comment isn't gender specific in any way. If this was happening to me or to a friend (of any gender), my advice would be the same, which is to find the $$ and get a lawyer to address this immediately because it is likely only the tip of the iceberg.
Re: (Score:2)
As someone else here already commented earlier; "Call the lawyer!" isn't always the most financially smart move. I mean, in this particular case? Just dumping the shared family Apple accounts and setting up new ones would be a quick, self-service way to break free of the controlling ex. If the loss of all the purchased content is the sticking point? It's very likely they could repurchase all of it for less money than a divorce lawyer would bill for the time to sort this mess out.
Is there some collection of
maybe apple should... (Score:1)
pay a handful of their high priced devs to focus on this for a two week sprint, since the issue has been clearly identified and sounds pretty serious, and put a short delay on one of those AI features nobody particularly wants... just a thought!
I'm just going to point this out (Score:2)
I don't know these people and I'm not going to dive into their defunct marriage. But I can tell you the following.
Tracking minor children and making them account for their screen time isn't necessarily a bad thing. And I can promise you that if the mother was doing this and her ex-husband said that this was "evil" she would arguing that it wasn't.
Women will sometimes do anything to get back at their ex when relationships end. Early in my career, a lady in what I will call a sister office (her
Re: (Score:3)
Domestic abuse is domestic abuse no matter the form.
It was being done to be abusive and vindictive; especially if the marriage is dissolved and he won't end the family group.
Re: (Score:3)
> Women will sometimes do anything to get back at their ex when relationships end.
Same for men.
"losing years of photos" (Score:2)
If you're too stupid to "select all" and drag-and-drop to a new folder on your desktop, then you deserve to "lose" all your photos and videos.
As for the apps, there's one license of the app on the account, that's no longer wanting to be shared, so it's a "Marital Asset" that a judge can oversee the division of, along with the rest of the martial assets. It gets a little more complicated if one side wants some apps and the other side wants other apps, but they're rarely very expensive, on the order of $3 to
dont get married. dont get divorced. (Score:1)
this isnt "the dark side of apples family sharing" it is "the dark side of divorce"
literally nothing about divorce is easy or fair.
Developer was single! (Score:1)
Clearly who ever developed this feature, was not married, did not have children, and never went through a divorce...
Joke asside, this type of development approach is quite common, for example in my kids school app, both me and my partner are registered in the app for our two kids, when the school sends a message, both of us will receive a copy.
However, when one of us sends a message to the school, the other half only receives a copy of the original message, if the school replies back.
Even More Reason To Be Anti-Apple (Score:3)
The reason is absolute bullshit. Personal responsibility or not; they should take action when this type of abuse is occuring.
The fact they have no path other than buy a new device and start over is appalling. This is not the sign of a good organized system.
Apple provides the tools to assist in domestic abuse. This is not something anyone should be supporting. They need to change policies or face some severe public backlash.
They need to stop denying customers what they want...or maybe they need to go under some anti-trust investigations.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem pretty adamant about this stance, so if you're cool with having a discussion about it, I'd appreciate some perspective - I'd like to engage in a discussion on the topic...
> Personal responsibility or not; [Apple] should take action when this type of abuse is occuring.
So, first off, I'm not completely convinced this is abuse. The father tracked the kids' location, sure, but every indication is that this is a joint-custody scenario, not a sole-custody scenario. The article gives no indication that the father has done anything harmful to the children as a result of the data he has access to. It g
I STAND CORRECTED - I WAS WRONG... (Score:2)
So, I went back to the article and re-read a quote from it...
> I wrongly assumed being the custodial parent with a court order meant I’d be able to have Apple move my children to a new family group, with me as the organizer,
Looks like I missed the very-important fact that Kate *did* have a court order to disband the group.
While I still stand by the fact that the article is extremely sparse in details, the fact that a judge issued a ruling on the matter does alter things significantly. I still think Kate isn't telling the whole story here, but I *do* think that if the ex-husband was unwilling to comply with a court order, that he needs to be held in contempt, and I al
Same behavior for Microsoft365 family (Score:3)
To be fair, Microsoft365 family accounts work exactly the same way. Only one adult can be the owner, the other adult does not have real admin powers. Beyond the situation described in this article, it can also cause issues if your (admin) partner goes into a coma or has an accident that renders him/her otherwise unable to interact with the account.
This is silly and it should not be that hard to have 2 full admins on a family account...
Re: (Score:2)
Not just computer stuff...
I share LA Kings season tickets with my sister. Any time I need to do anything with those tickets, I have to ask her to log in and do it. Even the Season Seat Rep admitted it's a dumb system.
Who paid for everything? (Score:2)
If dad bought the iPads, some of the apps, made the accounts, and he still has any form of custody, then Apple doesn't have a right to take it away from him. "Kate" can do the same thing many other people do in this situation: have their own set of toys for each household.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, like with every other communal asset, their lawyers could have worked out who gets what before the divorce was finalized. Why does Apple have to catch heat for something a pair of divorce lawyers overlooked?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but if dad's name and billing information is attached to the iCloud account, this gets very sticky. If there are any ongoing payments/charges that occur after the divorce, I believe it's assumed that he still retains control/ownership. Especially if the lawyers never discussed it during settlement.
Re: (Score:2)
But a relatively minor break considering everything else that's broken by divorce.
No (Score:3)
> Apple support staff were unable to assist her
No. There is always something which can be done. There is ALWAYS a process for handling exceptions. Apple support staff were unwilling to assist her. The management in the support team is also part of the support staff, although they probably think they're above it.
Re: (Score:2)
Unwilling, or possibly incompetent. I did tech support in various capacities for years, and learned early on that a large percentage of people who were incompetent to do that job somehow managed not to get fired, mostly by closing tickets after telling customers "Can't do it". Another large percentage migrated to management.
Re: (Score:2)
> Unwilling, or possibly incompetent. I did tech support in various capacities for years, and learned early on that a large percentage of people who were incompetent to do that job somehow managed not to get fired, mostly by closing tickets after telling customers "Can't do it". Another large percentage migrated to management.
It’s also possible it is corporate policy and the TS reps would get fired for violating it.
Re: (Score:2)
You want there to be a process for Apple to give your account away to someone else against your wishes? I want Apple to be unwilling to do that to me. I don't want them to be able to do it.
I've been through this. My Apple ID now ends in +A because my ex-fiancé owns the one with my regular address. Because it was easier for me to give it to her and start over. Would I have preferred a way to split the account so she could keep her purchases and I could keep Angry Birds? Yes. But there wasn't o
Re: (Score:2)
>> Apple support staff were unable to assist her
> No. There is always something which can be done. There is ALWAYS a process for handling exceptions. Apple support staff were unwilling to assist her. The management in the support team is also part of the support staff, although they probably think they're above it.
OhMyGod. Apple wasn't willing to take the word of one party to strip the rights of a different party. Tar and feather them.
This is the domain of a court order, not the word of a disgruntled, divorced parent. Your eager sympathy for one unique case endangers the rights of everyone else who might be in an opposite circumstance. Let a judge decide, not some warm body in a chair answering tech support phones *AND* certainly not armchair quarterbacks either
Re: (Score:2)
>> Apple support staff were unable to assist her
> No. There is always something which can be done. There is ALWAYS a process for handling exceptions. Apple support staff were unwilling to assist her. The management in the support team is also part of the support staff, although they probably think they're above it.
I assume Apple has a way, but due to corporate policy TS is not allowed to do what she asked; even if they wanted to help. It’s also possible they do not have access to the tools to help her. Personally, I would not want TS to be able transfer owner based on a phone call and some social engineering. In her case, I suspect a judge could order the husband to make an ownership change and can do far worse than Apple for non-compliance.
The Cloud Rule: Do not put anything ... (Score:2)
... critical in the cloud that you can't get out again within 2 hours.
Sounds Like This Can Be Solved In A Weekend (Score:2)
> Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.
1. Use something like iMazing or Photo Transfer App to pull photos and videos from the phone to a desktop/laptop, then replace the phones and apps. I'm really unconvinced that this is some insurmountable or prohibitively expensive solution.
2. What's the expectation in terms of changing how family sharing works, because they all sound like they'd be even worse. By definition there can't be two primary accounts, because that wouldn't solve the problem - she'd extend screen time, he'd retract it, and they'd ju
VERY IMPORTANT CORRECTION (Score:2)
So...I still stand by the fact that the article is problematically-scarce on details regarding exactly how the ex-husband was using the Family Group functions in a harmful way...I get that Kate didn't like it, but there was no indication that he caused direct harm to her or the children.
That being said, the article DID make clear that there WAS a court order for him to disband the account, and even if he was using in all the right ways for all the right reasons, not-complying with a court order is extremely
Be grateful for the wake up call (Score:2)
This sure sounds like something that can be completely solved by getting a new account. But then there's this hilarious excuse for insisting that the problem remain:
> Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.
If there's any risk of losing photos and videos, then they should already be working on fixing their backup system immediately, before something bad
What happens when the kid hits 21? (Score:2)
Does the parent still retain control even after the kid hits 18?
I think what is most likely going on is NOT that Apple cannot remove the father, but instead, that the employee is not empowered to do it by the corporate rules.
I bet if she sued Apple they would suddenly find a way to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's certainly easy to close all of the accounts involved.
Steve Jobs Parenting School (Score:3)
Great to see Steve Jobs' spirit of being a shitty deadbeat parent still lives on in apple products.
These family sharing features really show how companies think. Microsoft for instance - after enabling family mode - disallows installation of Google Chrome (they allow every other browser), and disables LAN play for games, forcing you to play over their xbox cloud.
Wrong party (Score:2)
The court order said she is the custodial parent. She should have taken the ex back before the judge on contempt charges.
Why did she divorce him? (Score:2)
He tracked their children's locations, counted their screen minutes and demanded they account for them, and imposed draconian limits during Kate's custody days while lifting them on his own [...] After they separated, Kate's ex refused to disband the family group.
He sounds like such a pleasant person.
new devices (Score:3)
With new ids? Maybe Android?
Re: (Score:3)
> the cloud strikes again.
Except it doesn't like it didn't with Apple. Nothing to stop you installing third party software to do cloud backup etc or self hosting. Nothing that either Android or iOS do in regards to this story is unique to applications built into that OS.
Re:new devices (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think replacing the children is quite the solution they are looking for...
Re: (Score:3)
Last line of the summary:
Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.
Re:new devices (Score:4, Informative)
I believe that you can't even factory reset the device and log in with a new Apple ID without disabling "Find My" for the device on the old account. Which I'm sure that this jerk parent is not willing to do.
Re:new devices (Score:5, Insightful)
> Last line of the summary:
> Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.
All those invaluable irreplaceable photos and videos they can't bear to lose, all backed up to one single point. It never ceases to amaze me. Cloud backup is just an additional backup to the ones I already have locally. I could lose any of my cloud accounts right now and it would make zero difference to data I value.
Re: (Score:2)
Even without local storage, when we switched to Android it was pretty painless to sync all that crap over to Google's solutions. Losing the password vault / email account if tied to the appleID would be more troublesome for an adult but perhaps not a big deal for a child. Likewise with everything either free or subscriptions, our outright purchases of software we'd lose would be... $20?
Re: (Score:2)
I also make sure my local archive is the master copy. But it really is impossible to accomplish with some effort and expense. In particular, maintaining an offsite backup. Almost nobody is going to DIY that.
Re: (Score:2)
I've plugged a flash drive into my wife's iToy to download photos before and it works fine, but remembering to do it regularly is something else entirely.
Re: (Score:2)
You know, you can tether your phone to a desktop/laptop and download all those invaluable videos and photos, then upload them to a new device...
The kids can take their current devices to the apple store and trade them in on new devices, and set up new accounts.
As for the loss of purchased apps, oh well - just move on - seriously, is keeping a few pre-paid apps worth what your vindictive parent is putting you through?
Like that song from the [1]Disney musical "Frozen'" "Let it go!" [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/YVVTZgwYwVo