Comments on: How many Apple IDs should your family have?

By: SR

SR — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:55:21 +0000

I have an itouch and an iphone, both on seperate apple id accounts.
What would happen if I added the itouch email to the

“receive at” on my iphone (in addition to the seperate email already in place) and confirmed that email address? Would only my iphone get both (itouch and iphone) messages? or will my itouch then also get my iphone messages as well?? Or how would that work…?

By: hill

hill — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:15:48 +0000

Apple has screwed up the login and IDs for their devices.
Heck, you need to be able to associate your devices any account you want.
Also, you need more than one login for each device. Need to have several guest account to be able to log in to without getting into my account on the same device.
Look at the iPad… it needs to be set up to have kids log into without the master login.
Apple is behind on this part of their program. They are just into CONTROLLING you, period.

By: Dick

Dick — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 00:31:40 +0000

This is great for iOS devices. How is this strategy applied to MACs

By: Thierry

Thierry — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:08:19 +0000

Thanks for the summary, very useful.

Today I decided to leave MobileMe, once and for all, and move to iCloud.
(we just changed the old “non compatible” iPhone3G to a 4S)

We have 2 iPhones and 1 iPad. (my wife and me)

We share our contacts, agenda, and photostream. Also a single iTunes account for all the Apps. I guess I will put all these functions under the same single iCloud account (the AppleID that we use for purchase). Correct?

But it means we can’t do the iCloud Backup? (different devices on the same iCloud account.)

And what about FaceTime and iMessage. Will I be able to set a different account for each device?

Thanks.

By: WillyWonka

WillyWonka — Tue, 29 May 2012 22:19:59 +0000

Some commenters are mistaking this extremely detailed explanation for it being complicated. It isn’t. Our family (including children) naturally settled into this exact type of approach by simply making intuitive decisions along the way.

All our iDevices share one iTunes account (to share paid apps). FaceTime IDs obviously have to be distinct for it to work between family members. Etc.

It’s all perfectly natural, supported by good system design decisions and rational policies (e.g. ten devices per iTunes account) by Apple.

We hadn’t noticed that the device count policy was up to ten. I was wondering about that, since we’re up to eight iDevices and iTunes PCs.

Thanks for documenting the exact details.

By: Moxie Mo Show

Moxie Mo Show — Tue, 29 May 2012 19:55:28 +0000

As much as I appreciate the effort in explaining what is already so confusing to most of my podcast (Moxie Mo Show) viewers, this still makes it so difficult. Seems like most of my married viewers have the biggest complaints in regards to Apple IDs and their iDevices. Thanks, though, for a good point of reference! -Moxie M0

By: mike

mike — Tue, 29 May 2012 03:21:21 +0000

Its all way too confusing. Why my wife and I cant have both accounts on a gifted iPad, thus *either one of us* to enjoy the apps and music we’ve purchased is beyond me. Either one or the other ID can be associated. Otherwise, they want us to buy a second one. Sorry, but thats not going to happen.

By: Robbiemc9

Robbiemc9 — Tue, 29 May 2012 02:08:15 +0000

Problem I have run into is that I no longer use the e-mail address I used to create my original Apple ID. In fact the e-mail address has been disabled due to spamming. You can’t however change it in your Apple ID! It lets you add and change new ones but the original cannot be touched. I can now no longer receive receipts for ITunes purchases. I can’t seem to come up with a reason for why they do not allow you to change this. If you start creating multiple accounts / ID’s this will add greater complexity and problems in time as more and more people eventually want to change their e-mail accounts.

By: Vibhor Chhabra

Vibhor Chhabra — Tue, 29 May 2012 00:21:06 +0000

IMHO, this is a pretty complicated picture of how many Apple IDs you need per device. I have been managing 3 Apple MacBooks, 2 iPhones, 3 iPads, 1 iPod, and 1 Apple TV, in a much simpler and straightforward manner.

You only need 1 Apple ID for iTunes for the entire family, and 1 iCloud ID per family member. Sharing 1 iTunes Apple ID will enable the entire family to share music, apps, movies, TV shows, and books. 1 iCloud ID will allow each person to own their email, contacts, calendar, reminders, bookmarks, photo stream, and documents.

I have been using this model ever since iCloud was launched and I haven’t faced a single problem with this. Try it out!

By: Amanda Pierce

Amanda Pierce — Sun, 27 May 2012 21:46:20 +0000

It’s a lot easier to take the time to teach people how to have multiple accounts on the machine. Windows has had this for ages, so has the Mac. But so many people are way too used to the “fire up the new HP lappy, auto-log in as “user” or “Administrator” and never sort things out.”

Teaching people that they can have their own account where they’re responsible for their own data is easier. Shared accounts are just a kludge now.