App subscriptions on iOS now require additional confirmation. This should avoid costly mistakes

The App Store has been plagued by a problem for the past few years that has caused many users to lose their money. This was a rather unfortunate way of handling in-app subscription payments. However, this is now changing, and as of this week, users should no longer be authorizing payment for subscriptions they don't actually want.

Today, when a user purchases an app from the App Store, they use either Face ID or TouchID for authorization. Once authorization occurs, the application will be downloaded and possibly also paid for. When it comes to subscription apps, very often after launching them, a dialog box appears asking for additional authorization to purchase the subscription itself. It is precisely at this moment that the problem arises if the user wants to turn off the application. He presses the Home Button, but before closing the app, it authorizes the user with Touch ID and allows the payment. Many applications use such a procedure in a targeted way to get money from people. But that's over.

As of this week, Apple has implemented a new functionality in the App Store that introduces another (separate) dialog box to confirm the payment of the subscription. Currently, when you download an app, authorization is done via Face ID/Touch ID, and if the app has a subscription, everything needs to be confirmed again to purchase it. The user of the iOS device knows exactly when they agree to the subscription and there should no longer be mistakes when the payment authorization was done by mistake or unknowingly.

The problem with subscriptions solved in this way mainly concerns fraudulent (or at least morally questionable) applications that have only one goal - to extract some money from users. In the past, there have been many applications that used various methods to obtain subscription authorization from users. Whether it was disguised payment pop-up windows, various dialog windows within the application or straight up frauds where the user was forced to put his finger on the Home Button for some reason that was presented to him by the application. The new separate subscription confirmation solves these problems and users should no longer run into pissed off developers.

Source: 9to5mac