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Comment by Keyframe | Hacker News Reader

I have an ipad through which I subscribed for Apple arcade. I don't use it / play at all on it and there was recently an email that price is going up. Sure, I'll just cancel subscription I said. I don't have my ipad on me, nor any other apple device (I don't use them anymore), nor windows. I have linux machines and android phone. Ok, so how do I cancel subscription? icloud login? no. subscription place of sorts? it wants me to install itunes, which I can't.. ok, no. After googling around, turns out there's actually no way except to call Apple in USA or wherever. I'll just wait a week untill I get a hold of my iPad and Apple won't be seeing my money for a long time. Disgraceful to say the least.

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Apple always assume that you use their devices as primaries. It can be very annoying. When I wanted to get my wife a replacement MB, I ended up checking out as a guest as they insisted on sending my 2FA code to my iPad (which mostly just annoyed my toddler).

> Apple always assume that you use their devices as primaries

Assumes or tries very hard to make the alternative as difficult as possible? From a company that prides itself in improving and simplifying UX the dark patterns aren't mistakes.

I think with organizations of this size it‘s usually just stupidity, lack of focus, or bad product management. Apple UX is sometimes really bad and buggy and the question „cui bono“ often has the simple answer: no one. It‘s just a bug that happened somewhere in the dev cycle or some immature idiosyncrasy that was rushed into the product because someone just liked the idea.

Maybe the UX is so good because they don't care to have a development team supporting your 0.001% edge case of you wanting to run iMovie on your Sun Workstation running Solaris.

Your toddler gets annoyed that you need a 2FA code on your iPad?

No. The user base for Apple Music on Windows is huge. Apple devices are secondary. Using the AM app is primary, once you've been successfully sucked into the Apple ecosystem, Borg-like.

Sorry? Like the OP I run predominantly Linux and I noted my experience with Aple 2fa and my assumptions around why it happens.

Perhaps I'm incorrect but what I said did happen to me.

You could use iTunes in Windows https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039

If you don't have a Windows license, you can get a trial VM from here https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virt...

Yes it is a pain that Apple doesn't offer a simple webpage for subscription management.

A feature of the Apple platform is aggregation of control, but they put the control within iOS.

This is awesome. I don't have to chase down fifty-eleven other sites to manage the things I subscribed to on my phone or iPad, including the services I buy from Apple itself. It's an extremely consumer-friendly aspect of the platform, and one I would miss very much if I switched to something else.

But yes, to use this feature of the platform, you need to have access to the platform. As you have discovered, though, Apple DOES have a phone option as well, though I'm sure it's less convenient to use.

Honestly, it just seems like you were primed to be annoyed about Apple, and have failed to realize your complaints look pretty thin.

I'm not sure if Apple pays your sandwiches or what, but it's not hard to imagine a reasonable expectation one could login to an apple-owned web platform to manage their subscription. Not third-party. Apple one. Especially after considering two facts; One - they have that platform via iCloud where you can manage billing and subscription, but apparently not for everything and second which is more important - I got alerted to this after receiving an email from Apple titled "Your Subscription Price Increase" and within that email there was this: "To learn more or cancel, review your subscription." of which latter part is a link which when clicked opens up a page saying you need itunes. itunes which I cannot install on my phone nor computer. No other info. I had to dig and dig through google to find that I could probably call someone at Apple to cancel. If that's not shady, it's at least sloppy.

Yes, of course, any defense of Apple must be due to remuneration. LOL.

It's an oversight, I suppose, but a defensible one. Putting management for subscriptions in the AppleID management area of Settings on Apple devices is an entirely reasonable thing to do. For one thing, it means you don't have to futz with a login to get to it.

I'd never use a web login for this. I'm sure most Apple users feel the same. And you have to have an Apple device to consume the subscription the OP is talking about, so ... yeah, seems like a chintzy thing to whine about.

Which was my original point: it's HN, so there must be Apple-bashing. QED.

It's HN so there must be closed source and walled garden simping to no end because no actual hacker has been in these parts for half a decade, all having left after the great walled garden simpfest of 2018.

That does not match the actual experience of reading comments here, but whatever.

So when you sign up for Apple Arcade, which strangely you dont use? Why sign up for it? But then it's okay that you need to have your iPad to signup, but when you want to cancel it is strange that you need your iPad.

I understand it would be nice if you can login to a website and cancel, but reads as if you make your mistake of not taken your iPad, or cancelling in time a fault of others.

>Why sign up for it?

Because, when you buy an Apple device, they shove free trials for subscription services down your throat in the hopes that you'll do exactly this. And it's not strange that they don't use it: the first thing you discover after starting the free trials is that they're useless and full of shovelware.

> but when you want to cancel it is strange that you need your iPad

Come on, of course that's ridiculous.

Of course a reasonable person would expect to be able to cancel a subscription without needing the device it was created on when they used an account that you can log into from basically anywhere.

If I bought an iPad and subscribed to something, and then accidentality dropped it off a cliff, or out of a plane, or lost it in the sea, and I decided you know what, I don't want any more Apple stuff, you can be damn sure I'd expect to be able to cancel any subscriptions I had on that account (you know, the account you can log into from any computer or device), from somewhere other than on the device itself.

Suggesting anyone should expect otherwise is insanity.

This entire thread is ridiculous.

Just pickup the phone and cancel your subscription. Yes, I get that you can't spin up a virtual machine of OS/2 and and use Netscape navigator to cancel your subscription because you dropped your iPad off the balcony of your cruise ship. OK, call them up and cancel.

I'll hate on apple all day, but damn if this thread isn't pedantic as hell. Jeeze.

oh my toddler is annoyed about a 2FA prompt

Give me a break. "Hey son, read to me the 6 digit code you just got on MY IPAD, Thanks son! Good reading my boy!"

Sure, who do I call? I'm not in USA and there's an 0800 number listed deep in some faq. My carrier won't connect me to the number. There's no local Apple in Croatia where I'm at. I will get to my ipad soon and cancel it, but it's absurd to say the least since you can log into icloud and there are billing options for it, so why not other things?

> Give me a break. "Hey son, read to me the 6 digit code you just got on MY IPAD, Thanks son! Good reading my boy!"

That assumes said toddler can read. I'm currently teaching her to deal with the login code, but it's a slow process.

Do you know many toddlers (i.e. 2-3 year olds) who can read?

Actually, I signed up for it when my daughter and I wanted to play some puzzle games on my iPad. Turns out A TON of games we browsed through / tried out via AppStore on it are pure scam / and really shady-looking. I thought maybe if I just click official Apple subscription and played games they went through all that sewer can be avoided. We played maybe once or twice and I kind of forgot about it; We played fruit ninja anyways. Insisting on having an iPad or any other apple device again to unsubscribe is absurd. What if iPad was my only apple device (which it was/is) and it fell down the black hole? I'm then supposed to pay until end of universe or call Tim Apple across ocean and ask for favors? It's unacceptable, no matter which company it is. ESPECIALLY since they do have web interface you can log into and do stuff regarding billing (see iCloud).

tl;dr; I paid to get away from scam, turns out I fell into one.

I agree, at the core it was obviously his fault because he signed up for an online subscription-service and now expects it to be somehow maintained online /s

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