Apple moves to help parents put the kibosh on kids' iOS spending

Apple has announced a new Family Sharing feature for iOS 8 that should make it easier for parents to stop their children from racking up massive bills via in-app transactions when the new mobile operating system launches later this year. Speaking onstage today at the company's annual WWDC event in San Francisco, Apple's Craig Federighi described Family Sharing as an optional system that allows up to six people to tie their iTunes accounts to a single credit card and share purchases among their devices. Parents can also create child accounts with an Ask To Buy safeguard that allows them to remotely approve or deny the child's purchases, which should make it much more difficult for parents to claim they were charged for App Store purchases made by children without their informed consent. You may recall that Apple agreed to refund at least $32.5 million to any iTunes account holder who could prove they were billed for in-app purchases made by children without their knowledge or consent earlier this year in order to settle an FTC complaint. Photos, calendars and "Find My Friends" location data is also shared between devices that are linked via the Family Sharing feature in iOS 8, which is expected to debut sometime this fall.