Sharing Apple ID for Store

Seems simple to me - you paid for the apps, she did not. If she wants the apps on her device, she pays.

My wife recently got an iPod Touch, and I have an iPhone and an iPad. I was debating this same thing and finally decided that it would be beneficial to share accounts for several reasons:

1) No re-buying apps.

2) We have a huge music collection and similar taste in music, so we can share iTunes Match on all devices. Newly purchased music and books also show up everywhere automatically.

3) Photo Stream merges everything from all 3 devices. I see her pics, she sees mine. Pretty awesome. (Though the iPod camera royally sucks.)

4) Find My iPhone puts all three devices on the screen at once, and I can use it to send annoying messages to her iPod.

5) Contacts and Calendars are synced across all devices via iCloud.

6) Notes show up on all devices (we use this a lot for trips to the grocery store)

To answer your question, you can set your fiance's device up with a different primary e mail address and this address can also be used for Facetime and iMessage. The one snag we've run into is Find Friends. It will sync to the primary iTunes account so she can't have a separate Find Friends for her iPod. Small glitch--nothing that's a deal breaker.

We've been operating this way since December of last year and we love it.

Op, yes.

My wife, daughter, and I do exact that.
We all have distinct Apple IDs and iCloud accounts but all use a common Apple ID for iTunes and the App Store. (We've used the common ID for years.)

I think you'll have a small bump when your gf changes her Apple ID to yours. I believe the moment she does this she won't be able to re-d/l any of her music or Apps tied to her Apple ID for 90 days.

Not saying that you shouldn't share apps, but I just keep thinking that somehow the app creators get screwed if too many people share apps. I'm sure most everyone does it, though.

My girlfriend and I have separate iCloud accounts but we both use my Apple ID for music and apps.

She has her:

And I have mine.

We also share a calendar by me adding a family calendar and added her as being able to edit it.

Works great.

super tomtendo said:

What do you mean about this?

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Sorry for the confusion. I assume your gf is currently logged into the App Store using her Apple ID. She will need to log out of there and log back in selecting "using an existing account". Then she will enter your Apple ID. As I recall the moment she does this a warning box appears explaining the apps and music under the old Apple ID will be unavailable for re-downloading for 90 days. I believe this has something to do with having music, apps, or books set to "automatically download". just make sure she has everything on her device she wants before switching to your Apple ID.

Sharing a common Apple ID between family is legitimate. The Genius Bar initially explained and set us up with this a couple years ago. Since then we've added three iPads and another iPhone to the family. It works great in my experience.

We've been doing this for years, which allows us to only buy stuff once. We still keep separate id's for icloud which keeps everything else separate. It's a bit challenging to sort out how it all works, but well worth the effort.

TheWheelMan said:

Not saying that you shouldn't share apps, but I just keep thinking that somehow the app creators get screwed if too many people share apps. I'm sure most everyone does it, though.

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It's completely legitimate to share apps within a family.

zhenya said:

We've been doing this for years, which allows us to only buy stuff once. We still keep separate id's for icloud which keeps everything else separate. It's a bit challenging to sort out how it all works, but well worth the effort.



It's completely legitimate to share apps within a family.

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Legally it's not! The reason you can have 5 devices download the same thing is so if you own an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch etc you can have your stuff across those devices. It's not technically for sharing with family.

Gav2k said:

Legally it's not! The reason you can have 5 devices download the same thing is so if you own an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch etc you can have your stuff across those devices. It's not technically for sharing with family.

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well I technically own my wifes iPhone and the MacBook Air she uses

Gav2k said:

Legally it's not! The reason you can have 5 devices download the same thing is so if you own an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch etc you can have your stuff across those devices. It's not technically for sharing with family.

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I disagree. From the beginning when it was music only, the DRM was designed to limit the number of installed devices, within a family, not to a specific user.

zhenya said:

I disagree. From the beginning when it was music only, the DRM was designed to limit the number of installed devices, within a family, not to a specific user.

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It's your Apple ID. You can do with it what you will. You get up to 10 devices to sync it to. These are Apple's rules, and app developers are well aware of these guidelines. Nowhere does it say what kind of acquaintance the person you're sharing with has to be.

I see nothing wrong with it. Apparently Apple doesn't either. You can load their applications on more than one computer.

I like separate accounts so that you don't get all the stuff she downloads also onto your devices.
My son and I used to have the same account and I got tired of all the stupid stuff he downloaded and getting them on my stuff, so I got him his own account plus I can set spending limits for him too.
But thats just me.
If I were still married and we would share our devices then I would do so too but if we had separate devices no I would not.

Also if you ever want to share an app that was costly or so, you can still do so by simply changing the account for a couple of minutes and download them.

Dweez said:

Seems simple to me - you paid for the apps, she did not. If she wants the apps on her device, she pays.

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I bet she's glad she's marrying OP and not you!

My husband and I are trying the shared ID thing since he inherited my iPad 2. Now if he starts to download a bunch of stupid stuff, all bets are off!

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rmhop81 said:

well I technically own my wifes iPhone and the MacBook Air she uses

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That's what HE says!

Someone said something about 90 day rule and it's true. You have to pick one AppleID and stick to it. My friend and I (practically my sister since I've known her since I was a toddler) both have an iPhone and our own AppleIDs. I've always had a computer so she helped me build my iTunes music library. So, now she can finally access it through iTunes match. We ran into issues with the AppleIDs and sharing our music and apps. The only way to fix it now is that she stayed logged in to my account on her iPhone. I've given her permission to use it as if it's her own account since we fill it with gift cards.

But, I digress. I'm almost sure that to switch accounts, you have to go to the store settings and logout then login again. But, then it will say that the AppleID you are using to login is either a) already paired with another device (iPhone/iPad) and has <90 days remaining or b) continuing to login will pair the AppleID to this/your device and will be unable to use on another iPhone/iPad until <90 days.

super tomtendo said:

I'm pretty sure you can turn that auto-app syncing off. It would stop the apps he downloaded to be put unto your phone/iOS device.

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Yes I know you can but I like it with my iDevices plus when you go into purchased apps, all those apps are polluting my account so to speak.
Thats why it was just simpler to get him his own account.
But thanks for trying to help.

WhoisMedina said:

My girlfriend and I have separate iCloud accounts but we both use my Apple ID for music and apps.

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How does one go about setting that up? I just bought my wife a iPad and used my ID to share apps and music, but it appears it's using that for iCloud also.

rfreschner said:

How does one go about setting that up? I just bought my wife a iPad and used my ID to share apps and music, but it appears it's using that for iCloud also.

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Never mind. I managed to track it down.

Dweez said:

Seems simple to me - you paid for the apps, she did not. If she wants the apps on her device, she pays.

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While you're at it don't read each other's books, listen to each other's CDs, watch the same telly etc...