iPod Touch and Apple ID for Kids

[jertronic]

Being new to this part of the forum I have a question about iPod Touch and kids. This will be the young child's first apple device. Should I establish a unique apple ID for my son? Or, is it advantageous to piggy back on my apple ID for apps etc.

I have already been brainstorming as to establishing guidelines for the use of this device.

[likethesoup2]

My two kids have their own apple id's.

Makes it A LOT easier to keep their shtuff separate from mine.

[Sodner]

I got my step-daughter who was 9 at the time an iPod touch for Christmas last year. Me, my wife and her shared an account for almost all of last year and it worked out fine. Now that she is 10 and getting more iTunes gift cards as gifts from friends and relatives we decided to move her off to her own account about a month ago. I started her off with $20 to get back access to some of the games and music she lost with the move and since then she has been buying things with cards she has received. There is no credit card on her account. She is doing fine managing things on her own.

[chezza73]

Hi. I'm wondering if any of you can help me. I'm probably in the wrong place, but here goes.....
I bought my daughter the new ipod touch4. When I set it up I used my apple id. The only thing is I own an Iphone, & I didn't realise they'd sync to each other, so I deleted all my important contacts off the ipod (not realising that it'd do the same to my phone)....stupid, I know.
Is there any way I can change the ID, so my phone doesn't sync with the ipod? I need my contacts back, but I don't want them appearing on her ipod.
We've tried allsorts to no avail.
Please consider on reply, that I'm a woman, & that any greatfully appreciated answers need to be in plain English
Many thanks in advance, & a merry christmas to you all x

[Chi-mex]

How old is the kid?
you trust the kid not to spend loads of money from his own account?
I would just add him to your account and then go through setting so that when he downloads something it wont automatically download on mine, but i still know what he is downloading and if he is spending money.
Me, two of my brothers, and my mom all share the same apple ID, and we get by just fine.

[ReallyBigFeet]

I'd give them their own account but not the password to same. That way you maintain control of purchase activity (which is nice if you want to give them iTunes cards as rewards/allowance) but you can still segregate their stuff from your own.

My 18 year old daughter has been sharing an account with her mother for almost 6 years now and when she went away to college it became very difficult to maintain the sharing since they aren't using the same Mac any longer. And with 6+ years of purchases songs/apps, you'll find the library gets very big, but since everything belongs to only ONE Apple ID, there is no way to divvy up the purchases between the two. So now my wife has to start all over again (she had far fewer purchased items than did my daughter, so she loses the Apple ID purely based on economics lol).

Trust me...sharing may be easy now, but it won't be in time.

Go to Gmail, set up a new email account for you child (sorry but you'll have to lie about the age reqmts since Gmail won't accept email accounts for youngsters), make that the Apple ID, keep the password to yourself and then register your tyke as a normal Apple ID using your credit card info and/or iTunes gift card info. Its easy...I just did it for one of my kids this morning.

[Primejimbo]

Originally Posted by chezza73

Hi. I'm wondering if any of you can help me. I'm probably in the wrong place, but here goes.....
I bought my daughter the new ipod touch4. When I set it up I used my apple id. The only thing is I own an Iphone, & I didn't realise they'd sync to each other, so I deleted all my important contacts off the ipod (not realising that it'd do the same to my phone)....stupid, I know.
Is there any way I can change the ID, so my phone doesn't sync with the ipod? I need my contacts back, but I don't want them appearing on her ipod.
We've tried allsorts to no avail.
Please consider on reply, that I'm a woman, & that any greatfully appreciated answers need to be in plain English
Many thanks in advance, & a merry christmas to you all x

My daughter is on her 2nd iPod Touch (she got the 4 Gen yesterday) She has her own Apple ID and I made a gmail account for it. She doesn't know the pass code for the email address when she got her 1st one and I had her 1st iPod set up so she had to connect to my Macbook to get apps and music. The App Store and iTunes were blocked on her 1st iPod Touch and this way she couldn't get stuff she shouldn't I knew what she was doing.

I am glad I did this and didn't have her on my Apple ID, made is so easy when she got older and gets her own things.

[Fossil guy]

I got my son an apple ID (email at me.com) when the new OS came out so he could use messaging. He had been using my ID on his device until then, but he needed (as I understand it) his own apple ID to use iMessage ... if he & I had same ID, we couldn't text each other ...

[HERO XXL]

With multiple iDevices in our home (phones, pads, and pods), sharing one apple ID became too cumbersome. It was equally as cumbersome when there was only one iTunes account as well--I broke under the pressure. After awhile, separating them all (iTunes accounts, apple ID's) just made sense. Especially with iMessage coming about. As long as you keep the passwords at hand and utilize gift cards rather than linking your own personal credit card to the device, it really shouldn't be a problem. When it comes to photo stream, apps popping up over all devices and backups--separate accounts are MUCH easier. All I now need to do is remind everyone to backup their devices regularly (weekly) and the headaches are now gone.
(until they forget their passwords. That drives me crazy!!)

[ReallyBigFeet]

One more reason to give a kid their own ID is Facetime. While the iPod Touch isn't a phone, putting your other iDevice family members onto the child's iPod Touch allows them to make FaceTime calls to the grandparents. This has been a fantastic way to teach him about proper phone etiquette and, looking towards the future, proper Videophone etiquette as well.

In its own "magical" way, this has been the single biggest payoff I've seen in getting my son an iPod Touch. He didn't used to pick up the telephone and call his grandparents frequently...they'd call him and he'd talk, of course, but he wouldn't initiate the phone call. With FaceTime, he is yakking with his grandparents almost every day now. Videophone calls via Skype, etc. aren't anything new...but the simplicity of doing it from his iPod Touch to their iPad (and I'm not doing tech support for either party thank goodness) is priceless to me.

[danielletolputt]

Hi, I apologise if this has already been answered but I don't think so...
I set up my 2 daughter's iPod touches with my apple ID but now wish to give them their own for using iMessage. I have a family pack with MobileMe and have created apple id's and email addresses for them on there but how do I apply the new ID to each device? With one of them I have successfully signed into the app store with their new email/ID but the device is still sending messages from my ID in iMessage not theirs. When I go into settings and then messages and try to change the 'receive at' email address it comes up with cannot verify, email address already in use' ???? Do I need to reset? that seems a bit drastic!

Edit 2/1/12
Yay! found my answer! I went in to settings / messages / Receive at / and then clicked on the greyed out apple ID at top and it gave the option to sign out and then sign in to iMessage using the separate apple ID i had created for my daughter. She still shares my ID for iTunes store but I may have to change my ID for that so she can keep all her purchases (I haven't purchased as much). Hope that helps some other struggling parent!!!

[jeb2u]

If I set up my kid with his own Apple ID, would he still be able to sync movies/tv shows I've purchased under my Apple ID to his iOS device? I'm not exactly sure how all of this DRM stuff works.

[raeldor]

If you're interested, I've just written an application that will allow 2 kids to play videos on the iPad at the same time. It splits the screen in half, and they take an ear each of the headphones.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dualp...492146701?mt=8

[Kmasuda8578]

I just purchased the iPod Touch 5th for my son. I tried to create him an Apple ID and a message pops up saying he is not of age to have an Apple ID. I tried to change his year of birth but its too late, the message still pops up. How do I create an Apple ID for him now?

[HyperliteG4]

For us, we have our own "family" domain name, which I have created each of the kids their own email addresses. I'm using Google Apps for this which is nice because I have a great deal of control over what they can/can't do with their email.

I just purchased my kids refurbished 4th gen iPod touch's for their Christmas present this year. This seemed like a good deal to me since they don't need the latest and greatest, and they were a better deal than I could find in any store.

My wife and I both have separate Apple ID's for our syncing, iMessage, backup, contacts, reminders, notes, etc. We also have a dedicated AppleID just for our iTunes library in which I am subscribed to iTunes Match. This works out well so we only buy apps once, we can all share our music, etc. Also it puts us on the same AppleID for iTunes Home Sharing so we can play music/control the AppleTV from each of our devices.

So what I figured was I'd keep with this trend of setting up the kids their own AppleID, and sharing the master family account. Through the restrictions in iOS, I can set it up to disable a lot of things, one of which being the ability to add/remove apps. This approach seems like it will work out well, plus we can turn off the automatic app download on our iphones and ipads so we don't get all the kids stuff there.

[KeepCalmPeople]

I've read all the posts on this thread and I don't think anyone has clearly described how iCloud, the App and iTunes stores, and Apple IDs work.

The key thing to remember is that you can set up a device using one Apple ID for iCloud (syncing, backups, Photo Stream etc.) and a DIFFERENT Apple ID for making purchases in the App Store and iTunes. This makes setting up a device for a child very easy:

1) Create an Apple ID for the child
2) When setting up the new device, use the child's Apple ID. This Apple ID will be the one iCloud account on the device.
3) Once the device is set up, log out of iTunes and the App Store and log back in using your (parent) Apple ID.

Now the child will be using your Apple ID account for downloading content, and his/her own Apple ID account for iCloud syncing and backups. You can go into FaceTime and iMessage settings to make sure that your child's Apple ID is being used for those functions (which they should if you follow steps 1 and 2).

You can prevent your child from purchasing content in iTunes and the App Store in the Restrictions area under Settings on the device.

[Brightlands100]

Thank you for this reply which as the title says does explain things succinctly. However, the one big stumbling block is 1) Create an Apple ID for the child.

Children under 13 do not qualify for an Apple ID. Aside from lying, how do we overcome this issue?

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted by Brightlands100

Thank you for this reply which as the title says does explain things succinctly. However, the one big stumbling block is 1) Create an Apple ID for the child.

Children under 13 do not qualify for an Apple ID. Aside from lying, how do we overcome this issue?

I've had the same question. Seems like alot of folks have their kids set up with their own AppleID but nobody ever indicates how they do it.

[Nuttz565]

Originally Posted by KeepCalmPeople

I've read all the posts on this thread and I don't think anyone has clearly described how iCloud, the App and iTunes stores, and Apple IDs work.

The key thing to remember is that you can set up a device using one Apple ID for iCloud (syncing, backups, Photo Stream etc.) and a DIFFERENT Apple ID for making purchases in the App Store and iTunes. This makes setting up a device for a child very easy:

1) Create an Apple ID for the child
2) When setting up the new device, use the child's Apple ID. This Apple ID will be the one iCloud account on the device.
3) Once the device is set up, log out of iTunes and the App Store and log back in using your (parent) Apple ID.

Now the child will be using your Apple ID account for downloading content, and his/her own Apple ID account for iCloud syncing and backups. You can go into FaceTime and iMessage settings to make sure that your child's Apple ID is being used for those functions (which they should if you follow steps 1 and 2).

You can prevent your child from purchasing content in iTunes and the App Store in the Restrictions area under Settings on the device.

This is the best explination on how to properly set up a iOs device for your child. I got our 9year old a ipad mini for christmas and this was the route I went with when i set it up. Good job on explaining it.

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Originally Posted by Brightlands100

Thank you for this reply which as the title says does explain things succinctly. However, the one big stumbling block is 1) Create an Apple ID for the child.

Children under 13 do not qualify for an Apple ID. Aside from lying, how do we overcome this issue?

As far as i know you cant. I wish it gave the option to set it up for a child differently, maybe some type of limited access account that is controled by the parent or something to that effect.