http://www.lebara.co.uk/money

Is the one I went with in the end.

If you put £20 onto the card then you get 2 cards for free. Free online spending & free to top up via bank transfer. Is all I needed. Only thing I have to watch out for is a small charge for 3 months inactivity (only if there is a balance on the card), can’t see that happening at the moment though!

Lots of different ones out there but You have to read all the small print on how the charges work.

“Micro-payments” are big business right now.

Many people will happily blow £500 on the latest tablet / phone and then balk at paying two quid for an app. So instead now we get free apps which hook you in and then go “want a new sword for your barbarian / carrots for your farm / earrings for your princess? That’ll be 69p please.” It’s basically the same model as drug dealing; first hit’s free, kiddies.

I wonder how long it’ll take before we start to see some sort of crackdown on it.

That’s what I use as well but theoretically you aren’t allowed to create an account for someone under 13 :(. If you do by accident try then you need to wait for a day before you can try again with the same email address

In the same way you’re not allowed to have a US account so that you can download audio and video and apps that aren’t available on the UK store 😉

Many people will happily blow £500 on the latest tablet / phone and then balk at paying two quid for an app. So instead now we get free apps which hook you in and then go “want a new sword for your barbarian / carrots for your farm / earrings for your princess? That’ll be 69p please.” It’s basically the same model as drug dealing; first hit’s free, kiddies.

It’s more cynical than that.

Most parents wouldn’t pay £2 for a pretty rubbish mobile game for their kids. Most kids don’t understand the value of £2 or mind spending their parents’ money. So by making it so that parents can download the game for free, then kids can do the spending, they know they’re onto a winner.

Why can’t you have a kids mode, couple of clicks to initiate, no web[u]

Jesus, no web!! my little un loves i player (octonauts, Charlie and Lola…etc ..etc) there would be a riot if I disabled the web.

Thanks for that smeg, I was expecting something Google-specific. Will have a look.

Jesus, no web!! my little un loves i player (octonauts, Charlie and Lola…etc ..etc) there would be a riot if I disabled the web.

You could always download a bunch of stuff in iplayer then disable the internet.

But really I don’t think you need to.

iOS6 seems to do something similar to what I’m after but as my son has an attention span in milliseconds he constantly switches between games.

Used to be on a limited broadband 10Gb per month, little un managed to max it out watching teletubbies and similar on youtube, plus I still need to figure out safesearch and stuff so he doesn’t end up looking at things he shouldn’t. internet off would be the easiest and safest.

Want something fully locked down for kids then completely open for adults with just a pin code or whatever to switch. will check out the app store tonight, might be something there but this sounds worrying

”IMPORTANT: Apple does NOT allow us to provide our Child Lock feature”
wonder if apple want to make it hard for you to lockdown or if it’s just some other software restriction.

mine googled big black holes – he likes space – he did not get what he expected 😯

mine googled big black holes – he likes space – he did not get what he expected

eggsackerly, internet off, at 3 he doesn’t need to google stuff yet anyway, when he does need to I’ll look into safesearch.

Settings -> Restrictions -> Enable / Disable

Set it up with the restrictions you want, then you can just enable the restrictions when you had over the iPad, disable them when you want to use it.

Settings -> Restrictions -> Enable / Disable

yes but instead of
click click “here you go son”

it’s
click click clickety click click clickety click click clickety click click “hmmm, do I leave that one on?” clickety click click “what about that one?” clickety click click “there you go son”

and the same again when you wanna google “tlfc20”

c’mon this is the ipad ease of use is king

click click clickety click click clickety click click clickety click click

You only need to set up the Restrictions once. You can then enable/disable them all at once with one simple switch, as bencooper says.

Personally I leave mine restricted all the time. I want to be made to think twice before buying in In-Ap purchases!

Plus restricting changes to your accounts means that if someone nicks it they can’t just disable your iCloud account and turn off Find My iPhone – they have to do a full Factory Reset instead.

You only need to set up the Restrictions once. You can then enable/disable them all at once with one simple switch

oh, if so I stand corrected, when I looked it seemed to be set it up from fresh each time, will look at it a bit more closely.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/12/parents-children-in-app-purchases

I have had a umber of refunds form Apple for Apps I didn;t think were up to spec, so you shouldn’t have a problem.

Same sorta thing happened to a mate just yestarday. Daughter upgraded a load of gaming apps on his iPhone. £140!!!

Gutted for you.

Had another little* go last night and it still seems that once you switch restrictions off it resets all the options. Doesn’t switch off web either just safari. I admit it may still be user error tho.

Did have a quick mess about with the guidance thing, ok for locking it down to one app.

*commuter bike issues meant I didn’t have time to look at it properly.

edit from that guardian link

“App developers are not often altruistic,”

no shit sherlock!

this happened to my brother. His 6 yr old did the same and racked up a bill of £300 ish. He contacted Apple who refunded him the full amount, but they said don’t make a habit of it! Worth a call

Had another little* go last night and it still seems that once you switch restrictions off it resets all the options.

Hmmm.. just had a play and you’re right. I sit corrected.

That’s a bit annoying. Though to be honest I just leave mine restricted all the time (In-App Purchases, Deleting Apps, Account Changes off) and I tend to use the “Guidance Mode” when giving it to my daughter (2.5 year old)