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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

For a while iOS would just seemingly randomly ask me to enter my icloud password. I’m so used to this that without reading this article I would have literally fall for this every single time.

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I have a joke with my family that I am forced to enter iTunes password on at least one iOS device - daily. We share one iTunes account, and when you enter the password on one device, all the others prompt for a password when unlocked. It's mildly frustrating when you have kids, and multiple iOS devices.

The scenario goes like this: One of my kids' Messages app stops working (thanks Apple!). I am forced to turn off/on Messages, and during the process Apple asks for my password. Then, when I attempt to use my other iOS devices, I am prompted for the same password ... on ... every ... device. Then, about 20% of the time the password does not "take" and I am forced to ignore and attempt at a later time.

/rant

An aside, but wouldn’t you be better off with each person having their own Apple ID and using family sharing to share apps and such?

There's one annoying omission from family sharing: no IAP are included. And almost every kids game has one. Not talking freemium but just ones with one free level that gets kids hooked.

IAP = In App Purchases

Oh, interesting. I hadn't encountered that, but that's very annoying.

That doesn't appear to be the case for us. We have sharing and my spouse and son make IAPs frequently. For him, I'm alerted to authorize the payment.

You can share the payment method, but family members can't benefit from the "unlock" of the IAP and must each purchase it separately.

I believe that is set by the app creator so that users wouldn't try to load the same subscription under multiple accounts. I'm speaking of the general app purchases, and family subscriptions we haven't had an issue with.

I'm sure there is a better way, but it would probably require a "weekends worth" of time to convert my entire iOS empire. When we started with Apple, "family sharing" and "ask to buy" wasn't a thing (so I'm not locked into the shared model) but I will definitely check it out - I didn't know I could create an Apple ID for my child AND share apps among all family members.

For those interested: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201084

I set up Family Sharing this weekend and you are correct for a family of five it is like a half day effort including figuring out unique usernames, being asked to use the same secret questions and then fixing the settings on each iOS device. If you have a toddler hanging on you and a curious 9 old, it is exhausting. Still it seems worth it as with each iOS update iMessages is re-enabled, which would lead to embarrassment if my vigilance wavers. Also, I like the idea of the kids having their own iCloud sync/backups.

Family Sharing has its own annoying issues. A spent one entire Saturday trying to work through everything just so my son could way Frozen on his iPad. This was the most frustrating experience I've had in a long time. You'd think it would be easy, but it wasn't.

In the end, I just let him watch it on my device and he was happy. Myself? I'm of the opinion that whoever design Apple Family Sharing should be ashamed. It's a horribly convoluted system that was either a) never tested by a real family (or they were completely ignored) or b) designed to be horrible on purpose.

I tried family sharing with my wife, and it resulted in her being unable to purchase any apps, even though she was set up as an adult user.

We ended up turning it off because sharing apps wasn't worth the "Hey, can you buy this app for me?" coordination.

And then there was all manner of nonsense after we turned it off, too.

I assume there are other weird bugs in family sharing.

Aaaand this is why I probably won't try it. I'll deal with being the only one who "knows the iTunes password".

Works fine in our household. The only time I'm alerted is when the CC statement arrives. Then I rib her for her CC Saga addiction.

I’m not sure if something is screwed up with your account or your devices or what, but I do t have that wacky experience amongst all my devices that share an account (~7-8 of them).

The Apple's way of implementing authentication into the various services caused me a lot of frustration. All this constant password reassurances combined with the necessity of complex passwords that is difficult to type in on an iOS device and the previously very persistent enforcement of constant user agreement updates made me use the least possible services. It was far from a pleasant user experience. I might have missed several things, interestingly looking non-essential programs or cool iCloud features that I gave up to avoid these annoyances, but that is it now. I will never know. It is still enough to 'click' those remaining stupid messages away that block you from using the device, like click away warning about the accuracy of local positioning when I want to make a photo on a situation that goes away in 3 seconds (so eventually no point of warning me about metadata of a photo not happening), it is absolutely wrong obstructing the user more, repeatedly, in using its device. I guess I accepted not to use the iPhone that much as its potentials would allow. I don't trust it (firstly just about its usability, now about its security as well).

I agree, the ongoing and erratic basis that my devices ask me to sign in to iCloud is a serious flaw. I already find iCloud a completely opaque mess of services that I don't understand, and this doesn't help. The only saving grace is that cancelling out of these requests usually has no obvious downside.

I had the same issue, but I was so paranoid that I would always cancel out and not put in my password. I'm 95% sure it was legit, but randomly asking my password for seemingly no reason made me paranoid.

Yeah, If i get a password prompt and I didn't do anything to "initiate" it, then i'm not typing my password in. I've never had anything fail using this behavior so I feel I'm safe.

"feel" being the operative word here - am I safer? Who knows?

I've experienced this as well. I seem to be able to just cancel out of it but I'd like to know what's triggering it. It would be nice if the password box had some text to explain the context of the request.

So why does iCloud(?) randomly ask for credentials?

Me too. For a while it was truly awful on my Mac as well, constantly requiring a login. Signing out from all my devices and logging in again finally put it to bed, but it's seriously concerning when you consider how much sensitive info is carried by iCloud.

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