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For a long time you’ve been able to buy an app once and have your whole family use it, but now Apple has taken it to some subscriptions, albeit with similar limitations and exceptions.
As announced in June, and finally launched in early December, Apple has introduced the ability to share your subscriptions with your family. It has taken some time to implement it for all users, but now it is available to all, with a certain limitation.
That limitation is that it depends on the service provider if they allow sharing of subscriptions with the family. As with regular app sharing, some will no doubt choose to never allow family sharing.
What this shared family really offers and not
However, it is important to understand exactly what is shared and what is not shared here. You can have the Netflix app, for example, and pay a subscription for it, but that is not and will never be shared this way.
In general, we can think of subscriptions as for applications that are part of services, such as Netflix or Apple Music. These are all services that have applications.
The new feature for sharing subscriptions is for the kind of app that exists on its own. There is no associated streaming service, it is just an app that gives you additional features for a subscription fee.
In iOS 14.2 and later, the ability to share subscriptions should be turned on by default.
Nobody tells you which app subscriptions can be shared
The developers would surely prefer that each member of your family pay them a separate subscription fee. So they generally don’t yell about the option, and Apple doesn’t tell you either.
So far, you don’t seem to get any notification that family sharing is enabled on your device, or which apps are included, if it is. At best, a developer can choose to include that in their release notes as a new version of the update comes out, but they don’t get a pop-up warning to do so.
Here’s how to find out if any of your subscription apps have enabled family sharing. And then how to use it if they have.
See if you already have the new subscription to share
- On your iPhone with iOS 14.2 or iPad with iPadOS 14.2, go to Settings
- Touch your name at the top
- Search Share new subscriptions on top
- It’s on by default, but you can turn it on or off here.
You can do the same on macOS Big Sur, but it requires logging into the Apple Store through the Mac Music app. That’s a hangover from the old days of iTunes, and it’s cumbersome compared to doing it on iOS 14.
Please note that when you have this Share new subscriptions, is enabled by default and all eligible subscriptions are now available to all members of your family. Except even when you’re in Settings and you’ve made sure it’s turned on, neither you nor your family will receive notifications about the subscriptions you can use.
If an app subscription can be shared, it will indicate it as Drafts 5 on the left, but not CARROT Weather on the right.
Checking which apps and services you can share
- On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settingsand tap your name at the top
- Tap on Subscriptions
- Scroll down to Active Subscriptions
- Tap on each of them
- Look for an option called Share with family
If there is no such option, you cannot share it. If there is, it is officially enabled for your family, except it may not be. It’s unclear if app and service developers have to say they want the feature turned on, but not all are.
Toggle the Share with family However, you can tell your family what they can wear.
The benefits of sharing subscriptions
Being able to share a subscription is a blessing. Makes applications even more valuable than before.
However, it is like sharing old applications. If your app or subscription service allows family sharing, treat that as a nice bonus.
