iCloud Family Sharing Now Allows Apple Users to Share In-App Purchases, Subscriptions

Apple’s Family Sharing feature is only available on iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur as of now.

By Shayak Majumder | Updated: 4 December 2020 18:16 IST

iCloud Family Sharing Now Allows Apple Users to Share In-App Purchases, Subscriptions

It should be noted Apple’s new Family Sharing feature doesn’t work on all apps yet

Highlights

Apple rolls out Family Sharing feature
Only available on latest iOS and macOS versions for now
Family Sharing doesn’t work on all apps

Apple users can now share in-app purchases and subscriptions with their family members via iCloud Family Sharing. The Cupertino company announced that the feature will be introduced soon at WWDC 2020 event earlier in June. Now, it looks like Apple has finally made the Family Sharing feature available for its users. However, the option is only available for developers and users running iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur. It should be noted that not all apps will offer the new sharing feature.

Through iCloud Family Sharing, Apple users can share subscriptions and in-app purchases. To enable this feature, you need to turn on Family Sharing feature. To do this, head to Settings > Apple ID > Family Sharing. Under the Family Sharing tab, you can add your family members with valid Apple IDs. You can also view the Apple Subscriptions that you can share. These include subscriptions to Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple News+, and Apple TV+. Once you subscribe to any of these apps, everyone in your family will automatically get access to the same on their own devices and accounts.

Once you have added your family members as needed, head to Subscriptions tab on the Apple ID menu. There, you can toggle on Share New Subscriptions. When you do that, eligible subscriptions will automatically be shared with your added family members.

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This feature is only available for iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur. According to a report by 9to5Mac, the new feature was found in iOS 14.2 and iOS 14.3 beta, along with macOS Big Sur 11.0.1. Gadgets 360 could independently verify the feature to be working on iOS 14.2.

Not all apps will be offering this sharing feature. As per a tweet by app developer Steve Harris, developers will need to manually enable Family Sharing option for their apps on the App Store Connect Portal.

App developer PSA: it is now possible to enable Family Sharing for IAPs and subscriptions, but you have to turn that on in App Store Connect. For subscriptions, it's under the duration… pic.twitter.com/Hj3NBRN3L0
— Steve Harris (@steveharris) December 3, 2020

So, if you were looking to share you Netflix or Prime Video subscriptions with your family, you may have to wait until the feature is expanded to more apps, if at all. Apple hasn't yet announced when the feature will be available on older versions of iOS and macOS.

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