Apple has addressed an issue that caused some iOS and iPadOS apps to not open when a person was on a Family Sharing plan.
Over the last couple of weeks, some individuals received a message saying: “This app is no longer shared with you.” The user was then instructed to buy it from the App Store. This appeared to only happen in cases where a member of the family group had previously purchased or downloaded it, but anyone else in the family was presented with the error message.
Apple has since confirmed to TechCrunch that “the issue has been now resolved for all affected customers.” This was likely the reason behind dozens of apps recently being updated, despite no apparent changes or new features. As TechCrunch points out, some users were able to fix the problem by deleting and reinstalling the app, which likely overwrote the impacted portion. The app updates Apple pushed likely did this on a much larger scale.
While Apple has not commented on the cause, it’s nice this issue was squashed quickly.