family-sharingios-appstoreitunes
I would like to gain more insight into Family Sharing.
Suppose I add Person X to my Family and let X buy apps from it. If later I remove X from my Family account, would I still be able to download apps later from iTunes purchases that X had purchased? Or will it be only available to X who brought the app in the first place?
Also, if I add X to my Family account, would I be able to download the apps that X has purchased while X is still in Family Sharing?
"Up to six people in your family can share purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store without sharing accounts. Pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device. Easily share photos, a family calendar, and more to help keep everyone connected."
https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/family-sharing/
In-App purchases are not supported by Family Sharing.
http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/19/ios-8-how-to-set-up-and-use-family-sharing/
If a free app has been shared and a user makes in-app purchases, this is supported; however, if the user leaves the group in which the app was originally shared, the user will need to purchase the app on their own and then restore their purchases.
Before Family Sharing, you could take someone else's iOS device and sign in to the app store with your account and download all/any apps you choose.
At that point, your password was needed to update, but signing out didn't delete the apps or in any other way prevent them from working. Let's set aside in-app purchases for the time being.
Family sharing changes this in that when someone joins the "family" - their Apple ID is used to download and update other family member apps. They do not show up in your purchases, they show up as the other named family member's purchase. All that changes is the password needed to install and update.
When you as a family member remove yourself from the plan - you get a warning that lists what will happen and basically, you immediately lose access to the purchases, photos, calendars and other items that were shared in the plan.
Rejoining the family would then let you re-download and re-sync the items.
You'll probably want to find a better way to use the family service than routinely joining and leaving or skip the family share and use the older method of signing in to multiple devices which doesn't immediately remove/revoke the items.
Best Answer
I feel Apple has some corporate greed issues with their Family Sharing feature that they designed. The system locks your credit card in, you can't remove it, which negatively impacts families budgets. I will detail below.
First let me answer your questions:
In your first question, the latter part is true: purchases by person X will only be available to person X. This is according to the Leave Family Sharing article on the Apple Support site.
Under the section: What happens to your content when you stop sharing? it says
In your second question - the answer is Yes - apps are shared within the Family.
However, I recommend you do not turn on Family Sharing for 2 reasons:
You have to enter a credit card to turn on Family Sharing. Once you do this, your payment method cannot later be switched to None (i.e - you can't remove your credit card!) without turning off Family Sharing...oh how nice....
So lets turn off Family Sharing, should be easy enough. Well, not if you have a child on your Family Sharing that is under 13. You can't turn off Family Sharing if there is a child on your account under 13. So now you are stuck verifying your credit card all the time, because you can't ever remove it.
The Family Sharing hurts families budgets because, kids are kids and get the password and make purchases and rack up the bill. So you want to remove the credit card, but you are restricted by Apple, because a credit card is a requirement for Family Sharing. And you can't turn off family sharing if you have a child under 13. So you are stuck.
It shouldn't be this hard to remove the credit card, yet it is. Shame on Apple - it feels like they have you and your credit card trapped in their system.