Apple ID help

Crispy_Ambulance

Hi

I have been googling this but have now got more confused, so am hoping someone might be able to help. We have 1 iTunes account and iTunes library and that is linked to 1 Apple ID. Husband has an iPhone which is linked to the same ID.

Son has now got an iPod Touch which we linked to the same ID at first. However, hubby is getting asked for the password on his iPhone and is getting all of son's downloaded games, which he doesn't want. Do we need to create separate Apple ID for each person and can they all still access the same library? Also, how does son download anything onto his iPod as we'd rather not set up a credit card on his account?

Apologies if these are very basic questions but I don't really have any experience with Apple products and am still slightly suspicious of them!

Humphrey10

Simplest way:
Make sure each person has a separate, unique, Apple ID. Make sure they each know their password and only their password.

To create an account without a credit/debit card: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534
You can add iTunes vouchers to the account if/when you want to buy things.

Make sure each iDevice is only linked to one account, and that account should be the only one used to download apps to that iDevice.

Uninstall any apps downloaded with the 'wrong' Apple ID, and re-purchase and re-download them with the 'right' Apple ID (the one that belongs to the owner of the device).

I have no idea about iTunes librarys, but I'm sure someone else who knows will reply. Does the above make sense so far though?

SunnySusie

But, as Humph says, everything has to be bought again. Reminds me a bit of the poll tax where people were taxed individually. Well now it's the same with media / games, we each have to pay for our own copy.

It's amazing people seem to accept this, especially anyone on MSE! But perhaps that's part of the spell Apple holds over consumers? It's a massive shift in how we consume yet seems to have slipped well under the majority's radar.

A physical console game or CD can be shared around family members but unfortunately licensed media content is assigned to specific accounts. No transfers allowed, and don't even think about dying - you can't pass on your digital record collection to the grand kids!

At the least we should be able to move a purchased license from one account to another. Or, there should be a decent discount to reflect that what we are buying is less good than eg a DVD or CD (which could be sold on). Yet digital albums/books seem to be just a few pounds cheaper.


Ooops sorry, probably not the time or place to prattle on ! But again, I just can't believe we aren't more angry about this. We are buying something far inferior for almost the same price...

Im_just_careful

It comes down to how much content each user has bought and wants.

You can manage each device from the account pool of content.

I have an iPhone and a much older iPod touch. They are both linked to the same account and within the restrictions of different firmware versions they both can have the same 3 paid apps without me paying twice.

As for music they each have a different selection. You can select what to download on a device by device basis. 99% of my music is not rights restricted (downloads from Amazon or CD rips) so if I wanted to have a different account for each device all I would loose is the paid apps and 3 songs.

You could consider who has the most paid content and give them your existing account and the person who has little or no need for rights restricted content has the new account.

Another approach I believe would work would be to have different computer user accounts but each with the same iTunes account. Copy items to each users library and syn from that.

It is a bit of a pain but you can make it work.

burnsguitarman

You can each have your own apple id, but then if you only use one of the id's to purchase from the app store or itunes, then sign in using that id on your device you can then download the purchase onto another device. If you go into Settings/store/appleID you can specify which account is used for purchases, also you can choose to automatically download, music, apps, and books to each device using the same account for purchases.
This is what we do, so that we only need to purchase once, and can have the same app/music on all of our 5 devices..
Sorry I cant explain it better. But I hope it helps.

datostar

Disable automatic sync of the devices in iTunes and as and then when each is connected (on the same ID), select which content you want to transfer to each device then sync. I do this with an iPhone and iPod Touch which I don't want to have the same content on and it works fine with the one Apple ID and iTunes account. No problem at all in placing apps on both devices either. If I access the App Store on either device it uses the same password.

Humphrey10

SunnySusie wrote: »

But, as Humph says, everything has to be bought again.

I assumed nothing has been bought for/by the son, given the comment about credit cards.

BUT WAIT!
I have just learned today that iOS 6 (the next operating system update for the newer iDevices) will remove the need for you to enter passwords when updating apps.
So, that makes it a lot simpler (provided the son's iPod touch is a 4th gen - if not you won't be able to get iOS 6 for it).

Just turn off automatic sync like datostar says.
Create the son a separate Apple ID.
Change the password of the father's Apple ID to something the son doesn't know.

Then until iOS 6 is released, the son will just have to put up with not being able to update the apps bought on his father's Apple ID. But after that, he will be able to update them without the password to his father's account.

iwb100

The simplest solution would be to have a separate library for each device. Then the libraries can be kept separately. You can still use the same Apple ID for each one.

Please note that the "Apple ID" or Itunes store login (the same thing) are independent of the library. The library is the local store on your computer. In other words the apple ID does not remember your content so having 2 apple ID's but with one library will still result in mixing up of content.

As said above you can of course specify which content each device syncs with. That is another option, but requires the most management and manual intervention.

You can have two libraries and share content between them as well if some stuff is common to each device but some not.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495

See this page for some options.

jayme1

yes you should have your own separate AppleIDs, that way you can use things like iCloud and not have cross contamination of contacts and such.

You do not need to buy Apps again, if both devices are using the same iTunes on the same computer then Apps bought with both AppleIDs can be synced with both iDevices regardless of the AppleID used on the device, even if they both use separate iTunes on different computers all you would have to do is Activate both computers with both AppleIDs and then copy the .ipa you don't want to buy again.

DRM free music will sync with both and work on any computer without any special methods.

Also if both use the same iTunes on the same computer I personally would not use the separate Library method, I would instead create 2 playlists one for each person for the music they want on the devices.

Also if you do continue to use the same AppleID then you can turn off the Automatic Download option in Settings.

ryanr

best to create for each person one ID. For the kid I advise to get one of these iTunes cards with which you can load the account. Kids should never have the possibility to overspend!!