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Apple Highlights Age Ratings in iOS App Store With New Icons

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Apple yesterday rolled out another tweak for its iOS App Store, adding age rating icons to the top section of each app's information page. While the ratings have long been included in app details at the bottom of the pages, the new icons are much more prominent to help parents quickly assess whether a given app might be age appropriate for their children.

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The change comes roughly two weeks after Apple added new "Offers In-App Purchases" labels to relevant App Store listings in another effort to make parents and other customers more aware of potential costs involved with apps.

Top Rated Comments

ArtOfWarfare Avatar
176 months ago
Every science teacher ever is probably going bananas over the lack of units with that number. 9+ What!? Is that how many hours the app runs?

I feel parents may not understand either. Having the words "For Ages" above it would be useful.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
roland.g Avatar
176 months ago
Unfortunately what iOS App store does not do well is make it easy to search for educational games, learning, and creativity apps by age range. So it isn't easy to determine which "Children's" category apps are better for a 3 and 5 year old than for a 8 or 10 year old.

With so many apps available, it's a lot of junk to wade through.

AppShopper is pretty much a useless site and app too, and not just for Kids stuff but their entire search engine and paradigm is flawed for the consumer. It's only useful if you know what you are looking for, in which case I wouldn't need their site.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Klae17 Avatar
176 months ago
OUR CHILDREN NEED PROTECTION!! They need iBubbleSuits.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
charlituna Avatar
176 months ago
I think Apple's age ratings are really messed up. I have played some really gruesome games that were only rated 9+, while some 12+ apps have apparently no inappropriate content at all. And google chrome is rated 17+ just because there is 17+ stuff on the internet. :rolleyes:

The developers pick the rating that's why it's so messed up.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
176 months ago
And that's the underlying issue of trying to cater to all that kind of "weird"/"mistaken" stuff--going for the lowest common denominator doesn't really result in all that much good for the majority (whether most realize it or not).
Wait, isn't a very low lowest common denominator a good thing? The stupid people would be those who are big prime numbers.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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