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Few things are rarely completely, 100 percent free — and that includes so-called free apps like games and other entertainment apps.
Unfortunately, you may figure that out just as you’re beginning to fall in love with an app and it drops a truth bomb on you: if you want to continue falling in love with it, you’ll have to pay up.
Before you spend a cent, this is the scary reason you should never make in-app purchases on iPhones.
Apps like games cost money to create. So when a game developer puts that app out for free, it makes sense that in-app purchases would be offered to advance to new levels or access cheat sheets — after all, the maker of that app has to make money back somehow.
Many apps are perfectly legit and safe and making in-app purchases to take advantage of features you couldn’t otherwise access may turn out to be a-okay 90 percent of the time.
The problem occurs if you should ever find yourself a victim of hacking and theft after making an in-app purchase — and this scary possibility may make you want to think twice about those purchases.
According to U.S. News & World Report, apps that access your credit card information and allow in-app purchases could be storing that info on the company’s server — and that could lead to trouble.
"When you type in your credit card information, theoretically that could be stored on your phone or in the cloud on company servers," Shaun Murphy, founder of the technology firm PrivateGiant and a former government security consultant, told U.S. News & World Report. "If you put it in on your iPad and then you go into a different device and you can pay with that too, that's being stored on their server. That always worries me. At any point in time it could be hacked."
The best way to avoid the possibility of being hacked this way is to, of course, avoid making in-app purchases in the first place.
But in order to guarantee in-app purchases are far more difficult to make (especially if you have children or roommates who borrow your phone), Apple recommends taking a few steps to make you phone more secure.
To prevent in-app purchases, turn on screen time. Here’s how to do that:
Go to Settings > Screen Time, then tap Turn on Screen Time.
Tap Continue, then choose "This is My iPhone" or "This is My Child's iPhone."
If you're the parent or guardian of your device and want to prevent another family member from changing your settings, tap Use Screen Time Passcode to create a passcode. Then re-enter the passcode to confirm.
If you're setting up Screen Time on your child's device, follow the prompts until you get to Parent Passcode and enter a passcode. Re-enter the passcode to confirm.
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions. If asked, enter your passcode, then turn on Content & Privacy.
Tap iTunes & App Store Purchases.
Tap In-App Purchases and set to Don't Allow.
If you want the freedom of making in-app purchases, but also want to make it impossible for anyone else to purchase these additional features on your devices, you can require a password be entered for each new download.
In-app purchases are tempting, but the risk you’re taking may not be worth the outcome.
