It makes no sense to try to "sue your competitors out of existence" (especially by suing someone who doesn't have anything to do with Android itself, other than making a handset/tablet for it - you might as well sue Dell to try and damage Microsoft) when the mobile space is healthier than ever with both of them competing.
Apple's past history with marketshare shows that it doesn't really mind what marketshare it has, it will quite happily go along with whatever it has, making money and absurd profit either way. If they were all about marketshare above all else we'd have seen those "race for the bottom" headless iMacs designed to compete against Dell and we simply haven't. Similarly we'd have seen "budget" iPhones that would compete with the weaker Android phones out there, and we haven't seen that. There are some really stunning Android handsets and there are some really awful ones with limited hardware (I have personally used both, and my current phone is an iPhone 3G) - there is no doubt that a large proportion of Android's growth is due to those terrible (but cheap) handsets that are damaging Android's user perception at the same time they are growing the marketshare - a double edged sword.
As far as Apple is concerned it doesn't affect their bottom line - they are selling iOS devices as fast as they can make them, and the more people who look at the smartphone/tablet market (via Android, iOS or otherwise) the better off they are.
You are claiming I'm a "stupid zealot" for taking a position that isn't at the extreme ends of this perceived "warzone" between Apple and Google, when I'm looking at it from a more rational perspective, and from released numbers that show that Apple's iOS ecosystem is continuing to grow alongside the Android one. The only "threat" that Android poses is one of normal competition, and that's not going to bother Apple at all. If anyone should be worried it's RIM, since both iOS and Android are eating into their consumer market at a massive rate.
You also state that "worthwhile Android are just starting to come out", which is just nonsense - I have seen some awesome Android handsets that have been out for ages, since before the iPhone 4 was released. Are you telling me that no Android handsets have been worthwhile until now?
Oh yes, "forums for resolving problems" is really the same as enterprise level support.
The Ubuntu PPC builds are not officially supported, just as XP won't be 12 years after its release - I know Ubuntu release PPC builds since I use them on my 15" Powerbook.
I laugh at your ignorance of how the major pieces of software everyone runs work fine on practically all distros of Linux and all the BSD too.
I cannot believe you can say that with a straight face.
"So, this update won't mess up the software we have running on these production servers?"
"Oh no, it works fine on practically all distros"
"So that's a 'not sure' then?"
"What about vendor support?"
"Well, its not officially supported any more, but don't worry there are lots of forums for resolving any problems!"
Not only is the article random speculation, but the summary title seems to suggest it is something definitive.
News just in, the real reason Apple is suing Samsung is because they both had lawyers with free time on their hands. It's true because someone on the internet said so!
The article makes some hilariously silly assumptions, borne out by the fact that Apple is selling iPhones (and other iOS devices) as fast as it can make them - so there's really no "threat" to their profits from Android. If anything, a healthy smartphone/tablet market is a positive thing for everyone involved.
He mad no attempt to hide the fact - it's spelled out right on the FAQ, and it relates to employment over a decade ago, followed up with a video link of him being critical of Apple.
Not what you were expecting when releasing this "ignore him guys, he's an ex-Apple employee" in a clear inference that the whole article can just be dismissed out of hand.
That depends on what you use it for. It's certainly stupid as a hat or as a drinks tray (any spills just fall right off the edge).
It does make a very good casual use device for the living room though; good for checking the odd email or facebook or playing a couple of casual games. It's also great for catching up on BBC iPlayer or watching other TV.
It's very good at filling that role where netbooks are a little awkward (but still useful) and less good at filling in in areas where netbooks (or other computers) are excellent.
It has a niche, and it seems people are seeing that - hence the enormous sales that have show no sign of slowing down in over 9 months since release.
You don't use sic for differences in British vs American spellings. "Wilful" is the British English spelling of the word. You also used it incorrectly, since square brackets are the typical usage when inline with a quote, where round brackets are generally used to mark the entire quote and would be placed at the end, outside the quote itself. Had you left it at this, I could be forgiven for considering it mere pedantry since you don't run across British spellings all the time, however, it is clear from context that you're attempting to use it to weaken my own argument with an insinuation about my intelligence.
In your haste to try and find fault with my post, you made yourself look like a fool, or at the very least like you don't own a passport in classic American style. I could also point out that pointing out spelling or typographical errors (although this was neither) as a foundation of your point really doesn't look all that clever; it's the literary equivalent of saying "you have silly hair".
So, let me ask you - does that team of on-site programmers cost nothing? Someone has to pay to provide the support if a project reaches EoL and you want to keep using it. In the same way that you need to pay to upgrade to a supported version of Windows when XP finally bites the dust, 13 years after it was first released, you have to pay to keep writing patches for your EoL RHEL system - you addressed the problem (which does exist, clearly since you just explained to me how you worked around it) by spending money on it.
The centre of this colourful problem affects open and closed software neighbourhoods.
That's the exact opposite of my experience in two separate houses in two different areas with Virgin. One with 10mbs and the other (my current place) with 50Mbs. I haven't had a problem in either place, and routinely get the full 50mbs with almost no service outages or other broken issues.
Virgin have been excellent in my two experiences, to add to your anecdote.
Funny, that's what everyone said about the first iPad.
"Any time now!"
"Soon!"
"Just around the corner"
"Ok, well *now* it'll get serious with Honeycomb..."
In the meantime, Apple released the iPad 2.
I've no doubt that there will be strong competitors to the iPad, but the supposed "cheaper, better, faster" Android tablet that was meant to appear months ago still hasn't arrived.
That's all well and good for the home user, or the small business (and is one of the powerful benefits of open source) but for an enterprise setup with thousands of machines they simple can't go on that "it's open so I can fix it" method - it's the main reason things like RHEL exist in the first place to provide the best of both worlds, but you are still left in a situation where end of life affects software - it's no different on either platform at the enterprise level.
You just made my point - there *is* no difference.
Whether you use open or closed source software, End of Life issues affect them both, and to think otherwise is wilful ignorance - like the unnecessary trolling comment in the summary.
That's just it, they didn't just "change the name" - OO.org was a stable, well supported office suite that came under Oracle's wing, had a flurry of developers leave (and fork it, producing a different version of the suite), and has now been dropped again by Oracle, only for the Libre Office folk to say "we're not rolling it back in".
If your business relies on OO.org, especially some of the bits that didn't make it into LO, or perhaps you wanted some better support and didn;t want to migrate to LO, you are in the same boat as you are with XP now.
The original arrogant, incorrect and silly assertion by the trolling summary was that open source software was immune to End of Life issues especially regarding support and it's just not so. This doesn't present a weakness or a criticism so much as a fact of life . To pretend otherwise is just wilful ignorance or plain FUD.
I laugh at your naive assessment that competing/alternate Linux vendors/contributors will support something that isn't theirs. If SuSe or Red Hat goes belly up tomorrow, or it's announced it will no longer be supported, you seriously expect that someone will *100% for sure* support it to the level required by an enterprise customer?
Far more likely things will change in much the same way as the dropping of support for XP changes things.
Just look at the recent situation with Open Office.
I agreed with one of the other posters here - open source software is great, but the needlessly flamebait summary just makes me cringe, and speaks of a laughably uninformed or wilfully ignorant person who seems to think that "software that doesn't belong to someone else" in a thinly-veiled dig at closes source software is the only type that is affected by end-of-life issues. And no, "I can support it myself because it's open" just doesn't cut it (although it is a benefit, clearly).
So, if my Ubuntu install is left out in the cold, say the PPC version (not officially supported any more), there are "lots of others" who will provide enterprise level support for it, to the same level as the current x86 branch? There are PPC builds, but they are off in the backwater and you're on your own with them.
Perhaps the fact that Apple has paid a cumulative 2 billion dollars to third party developers who release apps on the App Store?
While Android is "more popular" (citation needed - how many people are saying "I want an Android phone" compared to "I want an iPhone"? - I will wager that it's not popularity that has given Android its market share, but the plethora of devices it is available on, some of which are cheap and nasty, some of which are definite iPhone competitors).
Either way, the iOS app market is a fixed, well understood target with solid numbers for use, money spent per user, install base etc, while the Android Market is less well understood, and not even available to all Android users.
It is a total no brainer to develop for iOS if you are making a mobile app - 100 million install base, all with access to the store, with only three hardware configurations (iPad not included).
There are benefits to being a walled garden, and this is one of them. There are clearly also downsides.
Right, which is where the iPod Touch comes in, as well as the iPhone.
From my own experience I know of 6 or 7 people who now have iPhones whereas before they had simple candybar phones and are enjoying the new experience, and crucially they don;t need anything more than the Apple experience offers because Apple are extremely good at catering to the "average user". An Android phone doesn't offer these people any more than an iPhone does because the extra benefits of the Android platform just don't fit into that demographic.
So while I'm sure Android will be there for those who absolutely need root access on their phone, the market will continue to expand with people who just want a phone that works well for them - both Android and iPhone fulfil that market, but there is no doubt that iPhone makes it absurdly easy and offers a consistently good user experience.
If you think that "current market trends" spell the end of iOS then I'm not sure what sort of Reality Distortion Field (tm) you are looking through - both iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads are continuing to grow in install base, alongside the growth of Android.
"Out of their way" being a non-encrypted install DVD with no serial numbers and no activation system with a single text file that says "please don't steal OSX" that you have to remove before burning a bootable copy on a non-apple machine.
Considering that they released the iPad 9 months ago, in one of the most successful product launches in history, and were able to continue to grow their profits in a global economic downturn, and continue to grow their smartphone user base, and continue to increase their computer market share, I think that's not too far away.
Despite many claims that they'd be a flash in the pan, every year they have continued to grow.
But now you're comparing an old candybar phone to a smartphone - of course a 10 year old Nokia phone will last forever (especially with a new battery on it) - those old candybars ran for ages before you needed to charge them. When smartphones came along, even with the bigger battery capacity, the battery life went down because the power consumption was much higher (more powerful CPU, big screen, wifi radio, GPS chip etc).
My iPhone 3G is still working fine to this day with good battery life. I'm sure the battery probably isn;t as good as it was when I bought it (just after release), but it hasn't degraded to the point where I have noticed, and I use it every day. I'd love to upgrade, but not because the 3G is broken or has poor battery life, so that's my anecdote to go with yours dying after 4 hours after a year. I still use mine every day and charge it every two days. The 3G and Wifi are left in "enabled" mode.
I can replace the battery if I need to, but as it stands now, at least a year outside of my contract (I switched to a rolling 1 month contract with my provider), it it still working just as well (subjectively) as when it was new. If the battery does clap out then I can replace it by sending it to Apple or getting a third party battery and doing it myself.
What Apple realised with the iPod and iPhone was that for the vast majority of consumers there was no need to have an easily replaceable battery since the device would either be replaced in the 3-4 year lifespan of the battery (with the lithium polymer batteries they use), or they would send it in for repair (or do the repair themselves). Adding the extra size and complexity of a battery bay made the device less appealing (size and weight) for a tiny gain in usability.
Certainly there are those who disagree - you can't please everyone with product design, but ultimately in those cases you either buy something else or live with the nature of a mass market consumer product. In my case that's the lack of front or side ports on the iMac - a beautiful machine that fits my needs perfectly, except for the fact that all the ports are on the back - something I "fixed" by using a USB hub making it easy to use USB memory sticks.
I did that for all the original Creative Suite 1 apps, with a modified community-created set of icons, since the original ones were awful. The ones for the new suites (which I don't have) are similarly pretty terrible.
CS1 (PS, InDesign, Illlustrator) still sit on my dock with the much nicer community icons to this day.
I agree, the original OpenOffice icon, especially on OS X, looks very nice - the sweeping line separating the two shades of blue and the two stylised birds. It's one of the icons that I "keep" in my Dock, unlike some truly ugly app icons that are only there when the apps are running that I launch from the Apps springloaded folder.
I wanted to loved LibreOffice but the name and icon are... suboptimal. I think this makes me shallow, but I like my UI to look good, especially if I am staring at it for long periods. There's no reason for modern app icons to look poor - and it's not just open projects that fall victim to this, commercial apps are just as guilty.
Yes, and they changed their policies and password mechanisms in response to this, putting the onus back on the person who owns the credit card.
Alternatively you can set the account up with no credit card and then whatever the kid spends (if you give him your password) is limited to whatever is in the account from gift card top ups.
Slashdot Mirror
But why?
It makes no sense to try to "sue your competitors out of existence" (especially by suing someone who doesn't have anything to do with Android itself, other than making a handset/tablet for it - you might as well sue Dell to try and damage Microsoft) when the mobile space is healthier than ever with both of them competing.
Apple's past history with marketshare shows that it doesn't really mind what marketshare it has, it will quite happily go along with whatever it has, making money and absurd profit either way. If they were all about marketshare above all else we'd have seen those "race for the bottom" headless iMacs designed to compete against Dell and we simply haven't. Similarly we'd have seen "budget" iPhones that would compete with the weaker Android phones out there, and we haven't seen that. There are some really stunning Android handsets and there are some really awful ones with limited hardware (I have personally used both, and my current phone is an iPhone 3G) - there is no doubt that a large proportion of Android's growth is due to those terrible (but cheap) handsets that are damaging Android's user perception at the same time they are growing the marketshare - a double edged sword.
As far as Apple is concerned it doesn't affect their bottom line - they are selling iOS devices as fast as they can make them, and the more people who look at the smartphone/tablet market (via Android, iOS or otherwise) the better off they are.
You are claiming I'm a "stupid zealot" for taking a position that isn't at the extreme ends of this perceived "warzone" between Apple and Google, when I'm looking at it from a more rational perspective, and from released numbers that show that Apple's iOS ecosystem is continuing to grow alongside the Android one. The only "threat" that Android poses is one of normal competition, and that's not going to bother Apple at all. If anyone should be worried it's RIM, since both iOS and Android are eating into their consumer market at a massive rate.
You also state that "worthwhile Android are just starting to come out", which is just nonsense - I have seen some awesome Android handsets that have been out for ages, since before the iPhone 4 was released. Are you telling me that no Android handsets have been worthwhile until now?
Oh yes, "forums for resolving problems" is really the same as enterprise level support.
The Ubuntu PPC builds are not officially supported, just as XP won't be 12 years after its release - I know Ubuntu release PPC builds since I use them on my 15" Powerbook.
I laugh at your ignorance of how the major pieces of software everyone runs work fine on practically all distros of Linux and all the BSD too.
I cannot believe you can say that with a straight face.
"So, this update won't mess up the software we have running on these production servers?"
"Oh no, it works fine on practically all distros"
"So that's a 'not sure' then?"
"What about vendor support?"
"Well, its not officially supported any more, but don't worry there are lots of forums for resolving any problems!"
Not only is the article random speculation, but the summary title seems to suggest it is something definitive.
News just in, the real reason Apple is suing Samsung is because they both had lawyers with free time on their hands. It's true because someone on the internet said so!
The article makes some hilariously silly assumptions, borne out by the fact that Apple is selling iPhones (and other iOS devices) as fast as it can make them - so there's really no "threat" to their profits from Android. If anything, a healthy smartphone/tablet market is a positive thing for everyone involved.
Are your notebooks insoluble in DCM and acetone? That would also be a requirement for my line of study :p
Where are you buying notebooks for $0.62 and can you send me some? I go through a ton of paper every semester.
He mad no attempt to hide the fact - it's spelled out right on the FAQ, and it relates to employment over a decade ago, followed up with a video link of him being critical of Apple.
Not what you were expecting when releasing this "ignore him guys, he's an ex-Apple employee" in a clear inference that the whole article can just be dismissed out of hand.
Not what you were expecting I think. I think my comment added just as much to this discussion as your "exposé".
Someone already "called him out" on this, and the guy responded. He last worked for Apple in 2001. His reply is here:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2094940&cid=35904014
So, hardly the ideal "shill". I guess it's fine to continue the FUD though!
And you can turn it off - just turn off Location Services. It's under Settings > General.
I think you just got "owned", I believe is the expression.
So much for the "disregard the article, he's an Apple shill!! Maintain the hysteria and total FUD about this issue!!" defence.
That depends on what you use it for. It's certainly stupid as a hat or as a drinks tray (any spills just fall right off the edge).
It does make a very good casual use device for the living room though; good for checking the odd email or facebook or playing a couple of casual games. It's also great for catching up on BBC iPlayer or watching other TV.
It's very good at filling that role where netbooks are a little awkward (but still useful) and less good at filling in in areas where netbooks (or other computers) are excellent.
It has a niche, and it seems people are seeing that - hence the enormous sales that have show no sign of slowing down in over 9 months since release.
You don't use sic for differences in British vs American spellings. "Wilful" is the British English spelling of the word. You also used it incorrectly, since square brackets are the typical usage when inline with a quote, where round brackets are generally used to mark the entire quote and would be placed at the end, outside the quote itself. Had you left it at this, I could be forgiven for considering it mere pedantry since you don't run across British spellings all the time, however, it is clear from context that you're attempting to use it to weaken my own argument with an insinuation about my intelligence.
In your haste to try and find fault with my post, you made yourself look like a fool, or at the very least like you don't own a passport in classic American style. I could also point out that pointing out spelling or typographical errors (although this was neither) as a foundation of your point really doesn't look all that clever; it's the literary equivalent of saying "you have silly hair".
So, let me ask you - does that team of on-site programmers cost nothing? Someone has to pay to provide the support if a project reaches EoL and you want to keep using it. In the same way that you need to pay to upgrade to a supported version of Windows when XP finally bites the dust, 13 years after it was first released, you have to pay to keep writing patches for your EoL RHEL system - you addressed the problem (which does exist, clearly since you just explained to me how you worked around it) by spending money on it.
The centre of this colourful problem affects open and closed software neighbourhoods.
That's the exact opposite of my experience in two separate houses in two different areas with Virgin. One with 10mbs and the other (my current place) with 50Mbs. I haven't had a problem in either place, and routinely get the full 50mbs with almost no service outages or other broken issues.
Virgin have been excellent in my two experiences, to add to your anecdote.
Funny, that's what everyone said about the first iPad.
"Any time now!"
"Soon!"
"Just around the corner"
"Ok, well *now* it'll get serious with Honeycomb..."
In the meantime, Apple released the iPad 2.
I've no doubt that there will be strong competitors to the iPad, but the supposed "cheaper, better, faster" Android tablet that was meant to appear months ago still hasn't arrived.
That's all well and good for the home user, or the small business (and is one of the powerful benefits of open source) but for an enterprise setup with thousands of machines they simple can't go on that "it's open so I can fix it" method - it's the main reason things like RHEL exist in the first place to provide the best of both worlds, but you are still left in a situation where end of life affects software - it's no different on either platform at the enterprise level.
You just made my point - there *is* no difference.
Whether you use open or closed source software, End of Life issues affect them both, and to think otherwise is wilful ignorance - like the unnecessary trolling comment in the summary.
That's just it, they didn't just "change the name" - OO.org was a stable, well supported office suite that came under Oracle's wing, had a flurry of developers leave (and fork it, producing a different version of the suite), and has now been dropped again by Oracle, only for the Libre Office folk to say "we're not rolling it back in".
If your business relies on OO.org, especially some of the bits that didn't make it into LO, or perhaps you wanted some better support and didn;t want to migrate to LO, you are in the same boat as you are with XP now.
The original arrogant, incorrect and silly assertion by the trolling summary was that open source software was immune to End of Life issues especially regarding support and it's just not so. This doesn't present a weakness or a criticism so much as a fact of life . To pretend otherwise is just wilful ignorance or plain FUD.
I laugh at your naive assessment that competing/alternate Linux vendors/contributors will support something that isn't theirs. If SuSe or Red Hat goes belly up tomorrow, or it's announced it will no longer be supported, you seriously expect that someone will *100% for sure* support it to the level required by an enterprise customer?
Far more likely things will change in much the same way as the dropping of support for XP changes things.
Just look at the recent situation with Open Office.
I agreed with one of the other posters here - open source software is great, but the needlessly flamebait summary just makes me cringe, and speaks of a laughably uninformed or wilfully ignorant person who seems to think that "software that doesn't belong to someone else" in a thinly-veiled dig at closes source software is the only type that is affected by end-of-life issues. And no, "I can support it myself because it's open" just doesn't cut it (although it is a benefit, clearly).
So, if my Ubuntu install is left out in the cold, say the PPC version (not officially supported any more), there are "lots of others" who will provide enterprise level support for it, to the same level as the current x86 branch? There are PPC builds, but they are off in the backwater and you're on your own with them.
Perhaps the fact that Apple has paid a cumulative 2 billion dollars to third party developers who release apps on the App Store?
While Android is "more popular" (citation needed - how many people are saying "I want an Android phone" compared to "I want an iPhone"? - I will wager that it's not popularity that has given Android its market share, but the plethora of devices it is available on, some of which are cheap and nasty, some of which are definite iPhone competitors).
Either way, the iOS app market is a fixed, well understood target with solid numbers for use, money spent per user, install base etc, while the Android Market is less well understood, and not even available to all Android users.
It is a total no brainer to develop for iOS if you are making a mobile app - 100 million install base, all with access to the store, with only three hardware configurations (iPad not included).
There are benefits to being a walled garden, and this is one of them. There are clearly also downsides.
Right, which is where the iPod Touch comes in, as well as the iPhone.
From my own experience I know of 6 or 7 people who now have iPhones whereas before they had simple candybar phones and are enjoying the new experience, and crucially they don;t need anything more than the Apple experience offers because Apple are extremely good at catering to the "average user". An Android phone doesn't offer these people any more than an iPhone does because the extra benefits of the Android platform just don't fit into that demographic.
So while I'm sure Android will be there for those who absolutely need root access on their phone, the market will continue to expand with people who just want a phone that works well for them - both Android and iPhone fulfil that market, but there is no doubt that iPhone makes it absurdly easy and offers a consistently good user experience.
If you think that "current market trends" spell the end of iOS then I'm not sure what sort of Reality Distortion Field (tm) you are looking through - both iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads are continuing to grow in install base, alongside the growth of Android.
"Out of their way" being a non-encrypted install DVD with no serial numbers and no activation system with a single text file that says "please don't steal OSX" that you have to remove before burning a bootable copy on a non-apple machine.
That's so far out of their way, I agree.
Considering that they released the iPad 9 months ago, in one of the most successful product launches in history, and were able to continue to grow their profits in a global economic downturn, and continue to grow their smartphone user base, and continue to increase their computer market share, I think that's not too far away.
Despite many claims that they'd be a flash in the pan, every year they have continued to grow.
But now you're comparing an old candybar phone to a smartphone - of course a 10 year old Nokia phone will last forever (especially with a new battery on it) - those old candybars ran for ages before you needed to charge them. When smartphones came along, even with the bigger battery capacity, the battery life went down because the power consumption was much higher (more powerful CPU, big screen, wifi radio, GPS chip etc).
My iPhone 3G is still working fine to this day with good battery life. I'm sure the battery probably isn;t as good as it was when I bought it (just after release), but it hasn't degraded to the point where I have noticed, and I use it every day. I'd love to upgrade, but not because the 3G is broken or has poor battery life, so that's my anecdote to go with yours dying after 4 hours after a year. I still use mine every day and charge it every two days. The 3G and Wifi are left in "enabled" mode.
I can replace the battery if I need to, but as it stands now, at least a year outside of my contract (I switched to a rolling 1 month contract with my provider), it it still working just as well (subjectively) as when it was new. If the battery does clap out then I can replace it by sending it to Apple or getting a third party battery and doing it myself.
What Apple realised with the iPod and iPhone was that for the vast majority of consumers there was no need to have an easily replaceable battery since the device would either be replaced in the 3-4 year lifespan of the battery (with the lithium polymer batteries they use), or they would send it in for repair (or do the repair themselves). Adding the extra size and complexity of a battery bay made the device less appealing (size and weight) for a tiny gain in usability.
Certainly there are those who disagree - you can't please everyone with product design, but ultimately in those cases you either buy something else or live with the nature of a mass market consumer product. In my case that's the lack of front or side ports on the iMac - a beautiful machine that fits my needs perfectly, except for the fact that all the ports are on the back - something I "fixed" by using a USB hub making it easy to use USB memory sticks.
Expand its octet.
I did that for all the original Creative Suite 1 apps, with a modified community-created set of icons, since the original ones were awful. The ones for the new suites (which I don't have) are similarly pretty terrible.
CS1 (PS, InDesign, Illlustrator) still sit on my dock with the much nicer community icons to this day.
I agree, the original OpenOffice icon, especially on OS X, looks very nice - the sweeping line separating the two shades of blue and the two stylised birds. It's one of the icons that I "keep" in my Dock, unlike some truly ugly app icons that are only there when the apps are running that I launch from the Apps springloaded folder.
I wanted to loved LibreOffice but the name and icon are... suboptimal. I think this makes me shallow, but I like my UI to look good, especially if I am staring at it for long periods. There's no reason for modern app icons to look poor - and it's not just open projects that fall victim to this, commercial apps are just as guilty.
Yes, and they changed their policies and password mechanisms in response to this, putting the onus back on the person who owns the credit card.
Alternatively you can set the account up with no credit card and then whatever the kid spends (if you give him your password) is limited to whatever is in the account from gift card top ups.