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Apple is making a big change to family sharing iOS 26.4: Once the update hits, you’ll be able to use your own payment method in Family Sharing groups that have purchase sharing turned on. This seems small, But it is a significant change How Apple handles payments in these situations.
Payment sharing is no longer done only by the family planner
Payment sharing can be a convenient way for family sharing groups to take advantage of shared plans and content. This may include subscriptions such as Apple One, Apple Music, Apple TV or Apple News+; purchased music from iTunes; movies and TV shows from the Apple TV app; books from Apple Books; or apps purchased on the App Store. That means anyone in the family can access these items, but it also traditionally comes with a limitation: since purchase sharing is on, you can’t buy your own shared items. All purchases are made through a payment method set up by the family group organizer, unless you have an account balance from a gift card or allowance.
This makes a lot of sense when the family members are children, but not so much when those family members are adults. Not all Family Sharing groups are necessarily “families,” either: friends can pool their accounts together to take advantage of shared services like iCloud plans. When all the shared purchases are through one person’s credit card, it’s a bit of a pain.
That’s what iOS 26.4 is changing. Once you’ve updated, you can choose to put new shared purchases on your own card — assuming you’re an adult. (Minors still need to go through the Family Planner payment method.) If you want to sign up a group for Apple Fitness+, you can pay for it; If you want to buy a movie on the Apple TV app that other people can watch, it can come from your card. It’s a long overdue update to the system that will make Family Sharing groups a little easier for adults to use.
What do you think so far?
What else is new with iOS 26.4
Apple has many new features and changes coming with iOS 26.4. In addition to this Family Sharing update, Apple Music gets a visual overhaul, too You can now generate playlists with AI. is Eight new emojis Following the Unicode 17 standard, rolling out here, Plus Apple finally fixed iOS 26’s buggy keyboard.
While iOS 26.4 is still technically in beta testing, Apple rolled out the release candidate this week. Barring any major bugs, this is the version of iOS 26.4 that will launch to the public, and we should see it sometime next week.
