Thursday, June 13, 2013

iTunes Kids Category, Parental Gating Revisited

Amid all the buzz about iOS 7 and the updated Macs, Apple also slipped in the announcement of a new Kids category in the iTunes app store at this week's WWDC conference. Children's privacy concerns will undoubtedly become a more explicit issue with apps... which brings me to The Survey Spot - Parental Gating. Thank you to those of you who filled it out. It's not too late to join in, but I thought I'd give a sneak peek at the results given Apple's announcement this week.

Sample: We got 20 responses of exactly equal female and male respondents. The majority of responders were parents and developers:






Finding #1: Almost all respondents (95%) believe gating should be applied to all features that are not part of the game, including in-app purchases, cross-promotions, social media links, ratings, and sharing.

Finding #2: More than half of the respondents feel gating should be applied to apps targeting kids 13 and younger.

Finding #3: However, 20% of respondents feel gating is not necessary IF the specified features are not present during game play, are not easily accessible, and or parents are prompted to turn off in-app purchases on the device.

Finding #4: Developers should consider offering the option of turning gating on or off. 45% of respondents feel it should be the parent's decision whether or not to apply gating and 20% of respondents feel it should be the developers decision.

Want your opinion to count?

The Survey Spot
Take this quick survey on parental gating on apps! If you've at all thought about children's privacy and safety while playing apps please take a minute to do the survey. Read the parental gating post for some context.

Click here to take the survey!!
The survey's for parents, teachers, developers, and whoever else. The more responses, the better the results - Help spread the word!

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