As a tech-savvy family, we've always been fond of Apple and its products. We've recommended them to others, invested in their ecosystem, and utilised their services to make our lives easier. But lately, we've come to realise that Apple seems to be making things more difficult for families like ours. Allow me to explain the problem with their family billing situation.

It's understandable why families would want to share an Apple account – to share purchases and save money. However, instead of making it easy, Apple has turned it into a headache. The process of setting up a family account is a hassle, but that's just the start. The real problem lies with the billing situation.

In our family, the adult dad (me) is the designated family organiser, with the adult mum and child as members. The issue is, even if the mum makes a purchase, it still uses the card associated with the adult dad. This means the adult dad cannot share purchases with the family without paying for everything, which defeats the purpose of having a shared account.

Moreover, there's no way to prevent this from happening. There's no option to specify who can make purchases or assign a "primary" account holder. This leads to confusion and frustration, as there's no way to track who made what purchases or resolve any disputes.

The situation is made even worse by the poor sharing of content within the family. Sharing music, movies, and TV shows should be simple, but in reality, it's a convoluted process that often doesn't work as expected. And when it comes to privacy, there's no way to keep purchases hidden from other family members, which can lead to embarrassment.

Apple's family billing situation is fundamentally flawed and needs an overhaul.

They spent so much effort on screentime, they forgot how to bill for it.