2 iPhones on one Apple ID account? Good or bad idea

[jctivo]

I have an iphone 4 and an apple id.

My wife had a droid 2 but we just got her an iphone 5.

My question is: should I link her new phone to my apple id account or create a new apple id for hers?

What are the drawbacks for linking to mine?

The benefits seem to be that any music or apps I buy, I would not have to buy again for her and vice versa.

For example, I buy angry birds star wars on my iphone and then I get it on her iphone as well (just an example).

She has her own laptop so she will sync to her laptop (not mine). And that way I suppose, she can control what apps she has on her phone.

She will NOT want as many apps as I have on my phone on her phone.

I don't want her getting my texts though and me hers.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
jctivo

[madsci954]

You can set up her own Apple ID for iCloud, then for the App Store, just sign in with yours. This way she'll have access to all the music and apps you already bought.

[Menel]

Using one Apple ID for iCloud and a different Apple ID for Store Purchases
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4895

[mrcribbs]

Originally Posted by madsci954

You can set up her own Apple ID for iCloud, then for the App Store, just sign in with yours. This way she'll have access to all the music and apps you already bought.

Totally agree. In our house we have 4 iPhones and 2 iPads setup this way. Works great.

[jctivo]

I will try this.
jctivo

[Small White Car]

On her phone:


Use Your iTunes Account for:
iTunes Store
Home Sharing (in video and music settings)

Use your iCloud Account as her Main iCloud for:
Photostream
Contacts
Calendars
Bookmarks
(assuming you want to share these things)


Using her own iCloud Account as a second Mail account for:
Mail (or not...just turn off all iCloud mail if she's using G-Mail)
Notes
Reminders


(Feel free to switch some of this up. I share Reminders with my wife, for example. The point is, she has 2 iCloud accounts on the phone. Hers and yours. Make whichever one has photostream the 1st iCloud account, as the secondary accounts can't use photostream)

[Mrbobb]

I don't have a shared account, but recently a coworker asked.....

"My Wife is seeing EVERYTHING I am doing, how do I stop that!"

Now if your wife is your best friend and you both are one, ignore this post.

[groupersandwich]

We have 3 iPhones on one Apple id and have had no issues.

[scaredpoet]

One Apple ID for multiple devices, sure!

One Apple ID for multiple PEOPLE, bad idea.

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by scaredpoet

One Apple ID for multiple PEOPLE, bad idea.

Any particular reason why?

[FlatlinerG]

Originally Posted by Small White Car

Any particular reason why?

Password gets entered incorrectly too many times and has to be reset. One person resets it, then the other person gets an incorrect password and has to reset it, this will loop until you communicate with the others that the password has changed.

That is one of many reasons why it's a bad idea.

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by FlatlinerG

Password gets entered incorrectly too many times and has to be reset. One person resets it, then the other person gets an incorrect password and has to reset it, this will loop until you communicate with the others that the password has changed.

That is one of many reasons why it's a bad idea.

Well, no offense to your lovely family, who I'm sure have many other fine attributes, but apparently they have a much harder time dealing with technology than my wife does as this has never happened to us.

[nepalisherpa]

We have four iPhones and an iPad in our family. We share one single Apple ID for iTunes purchases and everyone has their separate Apple ID for iCloud.

[BigMcGuire]

Originally Posted by madsci954

You can set up her own Apple ID for iCloud, then for the App Store, just sign in with yours. This way she'll have access to all the music and apps you already bought.

This is what my wife and I do. Win.

[Applejuiced]

Originally Posted by nepalisherpa

We have four iPhones and an iPad in our family. We share one single Apple ID for iTunes purchases and everyone has their separate Apple ID for iCloud.

Same here.
Winning

[FlatlinerG]

Originally Posted by Small White Car

Well, no offense to your lovely family, who I'm sure have many other fine attributes, but apparently they have a much harder time dealing with technology than my wife does as this has never happened to us.

Actually this doesn't happen to my family. I wouldn't assume such just from my response to what can be an issue for some out there. Just because that doesn't happen to your or my families, doesn't mean it doesn't happen at all.

[mantan]

Originally Posted by Mrbobb

I don't have a shared account, but recently a coworker asked.....

"My Wife is seeing EVERYTHING I am doing, how do I stop that!"

Now if your wife is your best friend and you both are one, ignore this post.

I think this is a common mistake for people who set up their iMessage using the same Apple ID that is shared for iTunes. With iOS 6, it will default to try to unify iMessage with all numbers tied to that ID. That ends up with everybody getting access to everything. Or even if they manually go out and set it to that devices phone number, it pops up if you delete and log back in.

I think Apple made it a bit confusing with the naming convention and the concept that you can use different multiple ID's for separate functions. It's almost like they needed to use an 'iTunes ID' then advocate separate 'Apple ID's' for Cloud/iMessage, etc.

[sulpfiction]

Simple...Bad idea.

[mantan]

If you set it up, I'd recommend you doing it as follows.

Current Apple ID: you@mail.com is used by her for iTunes. That lets you share common purchases on iTunes.

You'll need to create a separate Apple ID for each of you and use that to log into iMessage and Cloud. You'll need to set up an ID, log into it and reboot for it to unify to that address instead of your current Apple ID.

Then your wife will need to create her own Apple ID and use that for iMessage and Cloud.

You'll also have to set up iTunes and your phone to not automatically copy purchases onto your phone (assuming that you don't want everything each other downloads)

Personally I think Apple tries to hard to merge everything together rather than keeping it separate and allowing you to opt in. I know they are trying to cater to the user who wants everything duplicated on every device...but that seems a bit odd to me.

But that's probably because we share iPads within the house and it just wouldn't make sense for anyone to have their personal messages going to it.