The new membership policy update that Apple announced aims to make automatic renewal of subscriptions seamless. But it can also lead to surprise fees.
According to the old policy, the tech giant required users to confirm it before being charged for a subscription that had recently increased its price. But in the future, it will allow developers to automatically charge higher prices as long as they meet a set of conditions. Apple will notify users of the price increase in advance via email and push notification, but it is entirely up to the user’s attention to unsubscribe before being charged.
The announcement says that developers will be able to use the feature as long as they don’t increase their prices more than once a year. In addition, these increases must not exceed 50 percent and $5 of the current subscription price, or 50 percent and $50 of the current annual subscription price.
Apple says users tend to miss prompts asking them to choose higher subscription prices that interrupt their service. Therefore, it will be possible for users to miss notifications about price increases. After that, it may be useful to check your e-mail address a little more carefully for changes in the prices of your memberships.