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rotlex

macrumors 6502a
May 1, 2003
688
489
PA
Having an iTunes account(with an email address) before .Mac existed that is?

This is what I'm wondering about. I have a very, very old e-mail address that is tied to quite a few iTunes purchases, pre me every having a .mac e-mail. Wondering\hoping if I can finally get rid of this too.
 

Farplaner

macrumors 6502
Aug 4, 2008
303
0
I have multiple accounts as well, and it was for international purchases... I have a US itunes account, Japanese one and a Chinese account. I'm guessing it will be more of an issue but hopefully that can be resolved too.
 

PhilSukalewski

macrumors newbie
Aug 26, 2007
5
0
How about a consistent username format

Perhaps Apple can settle on email addresses either being the username or NOT being the username. i.e. a consistent format.
 

scott911

macrumors 6502a
Aug 24, 2009
758
456
willing an apple collection

interesting related comment:

This would help allow for the "willing" of an apple account upon one's death.

may seem strange, but in the past, you wouldn't have thought it odd to be willed uncle jimmy's beloved collection of vinyl records for example. Same kind of thing...
 

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
I have one Apple ID from well before iPhone.

I have another established when the App Store launched.

I have a MobileMe that I let expire and now an iCloud.

That's four ID's that all have redundant information.
I'm confused. Why do people do this? Why don't you just use the same ID when joining a new service?

Other than playing international games, I'm not seeing the purpose.
 

ChristianVirtual

macrumors 601
May 10, 2010
4,122
282
日本
Though I also in the situation to have three iTunes accounts two of them I would like to merge. But I fear since they are in different countries there will be some legal excuse not to do that. I really hope I'm wrong on that.

For IDs in one country I can easy imagine they will offer a merger.

To my understanding the old music files contain the Apple ID as watermark and would need to be reissued. Maybe a merger could be done via iTunes Match; as a kind of positive side effect.
 

arilev

macrumors member
Sep 7, 2004
49
16
Oakland, CA
Some of us have had :apple: accounts long enough to just have the ones that are username only plus username@mac.com, I am one of those people. I didn't realize there was a difference and ended up with two iTunes accounts. I now have to switch between them to update apps, and it's a royal PITA.

I asked a long time ago, and Apple said not so much, so I have a significant investment in both accounts, but have focused on one. There's no reason they can't merge username and username@mac.com.

I've got the exact same issue. I've got myusername as the Apple ID I've been using to purchase from iTunes, Apple's website, App Store, etc for as long as I can remember, and I've got myusername@mac/me.com that (thankfully) I've only ever used for MobileMe.

Seeing as I use the same credit card and billing info for both accounts, until iCloud was announced and other people started complaining about issues with multiple Apple ID's, I'd never even realized that myusername and myusername@mac/me.com were in fact two different accounts.

Ideally I'd like to be able to merge the two accounts then have the option to go a step further and ditch the @mac.com address from my merged account in favor of using only @me.com. Simplicity is king.
 
Last edited:

EddieT

macrumors member
Sep 22, 2006
34
2
Hiroshima, Japan
Merge Int'l accounts

Just want to echo what others have already said about making it easier to deal with multiple accounts in different countries. Apple, are you listening?
 

mattwolfmatt

macrumors 65816
Jun 7, 2008
1,085
197
This has to be pretty common, I'm sure lots of people are in the same boat I'm in. I was introduced to Apple through the iPod and iTunes. At the time, I didn't have a .mac account, so I started buying stuff with my gmail account. Then I got hooked by the Apple way of doing things, and started subscribing to .mac (and then mobileme).

Now I have all my contacts and calendars synced on 4 computers and 3 iDevices (mobileme), and I have 400GB of music and movies tied to that gmail itunes account.

I didn't realize it until reading this article, but this is going to be a problem, isn't it?
 

Starhawk

macrumors regular
Jul 9, 2008
103
17
I'm confused. Why do people do this? Why don't you just use the same ID when joining a new service?

Other than playing international games, I'm not seeing the purpose.

It's usually not done on purpose. When signing up for Mobile Me, most people usually already have an iTunes account (and therefor an Apple ID) but Mobile Me automatically creates a new ID when you join. Most people don't even notice this when it happens.

I didn't realize it did this until the day I tried to change my main Apple ID's email address to my me.com address. It wouldn't let me. Why? That email address is already assigned to another Apple ID.
 

imahawki

macrumors 6502a
Apr 26, 2011
612
8
they need to get rid of 5 "Computers" restriction, it was mainly for this reason why people choose to have (and still have) multiple apple id's.

Or let you disable a computer that no longer exists. That's my problem. I'm at 5 (again) and 2 of the 5 no longer exist so I can't disable them. I can't disable all because I just did that 3 months ago! ARGGGGG!
 

Praksis

macrumors member
Aug 31, 2011
42
0
Portugal
So that might be why all of a sudden my iTunes account today was "locked due to security reasons" and sent me to a apple page (from within iTunes) to re-activate it... I hadn't read this news, but it asked me to chose a new password for my account (couldn't even use the same i had before, since it gave me a "error" saying "that password cannot be used since it's the same password that was used last year"...).

Anyways, my iTunes account was working perfectly fine yesterday (last time i sync'ed my iPhone and updated 3 apps from the app store), but today i got this when i tried to update 2 more apps.

Another thing... i think (not 100% sure on this) that was here on MacRumors that i read that you could now authenticate up to 10 devices on the same iTunes account... is this correct?

I ask this because after i changed my password, it said "you have 4 out of 5 devices associated to this iTunes account" and if indeed the limit hasn't been raised to 10 it will pose a problem very soon for me... (Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, iPhone 4, Apple TV 2 and i'm waiting for a 2nd Apple TV 2 and a MacBook Air to arrive.... so that will make 6 devices, the Mac Pro is sharing my iTunes library from a 4Tb NAS drive).

Can anyone confirm me the correct number of devices you can associate to the same iTunes account plz?

Maybe the limit is indeed 10 and it's just me doing something wrong, or maybe i need to report this to Apple if my device count isn't correct...

----------

It's usually not done on purpose. When signing up for Mobile Me, most people usually already have an iTunes account (and therefor an Apple ID) but Mobile Me automatically creates a new ID when you join. Most people don't even notice this when it happens.

I didn't realize it did this until the day I tried to change my main Apple ID's email address to my me.com address. It wouldn't let me. Why? That email address is already assigned to another Apple ID.

Got the same problem, and only noticed it today... I have my iTunes account since before Mobile Me existed, using my ISP provided mail address to create it... and i have the Mobile Me service since day 1 as well...

Now, it came to a point where i changed house, and since my current ISP does not operate where my new place is, i've been changing any and all subscriptions and services that are using my ISP's mail address to the Mobile Me address... tried to do the same with my iTunes account this morning, and got the same message you describe (even if i'm positive i did not create a 2nd iTunes account using my Mobile Me account).
 

Bluemeanie1976

macrumors 6502a
Nov 1, 2009
551
0
Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
About time too. I have my .me account, and my iTunes account email/ID. I can't change my iTunes account to my .me account, for some blot wrongly silly reason. The sooner I can do this, the happier I'll be.
 

imacken

macrumors 65816
Feb 28, 2010
1,232
127
Like everyone else here, I will be so happy if this happens as I am fed up having 1 ID for iTunes, 1 for iCloud/MM, and 1 for Apple forums.
 

jennyp

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2007
632
274
Can someone please explain the problem? I have a MobileMe Apple ID (and I don't want to lose the email addresses), and I have a separate Apple ID for iTunes music and app purchases. How will having these two separate IDs impact my use of iCloud?
 

imacken

macrumors 65816
Feb 28, 2010
1,232
127
It won't! This discussion has nothing to do with iCloud. You'll be able to migrate you MM account very soon to iCloud.
Your other ID will remain separate, but wouldn't it be good if you could merge the two?
 

accessoriesguy

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2011
891
0
yeah multiple accounts on the same platform is pretty ridiculous, not to mention this makes sharing devices ever more so difficult. I hope they come up with a relatively simple way for everyone to enjoy their devices more!
 

jennyp

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2007
632
274
It won't! This discussion has nothing to do with iCloud. You'll be able to migrate you MM account very soon to iCloud.
Your other ID will remain separate, but wouldn't it be good if you could merge the two?

OK, great, thanks! Sorry for the confusion. I thought it would mess things up in some way as the use of iCloud would be dependent on my MM ID and the app data that were being backed-up/synced would be in some way dependent on the iTunes ID.

Glad to know I won't have a problem!

(Yes it would be more convenient to just have the one ID!)
 

MojoDojo

macrumors member
Aug 19, 2011
30
0
This sounds great and all, but I wish Apple would focus on allowing multiple Apple IDs to log in to a single device. Just like on a PC, if the iPad supported multiple users it would be such a great family tablet.

I know it might eat into sales a little, but I don't think it's very Apple-like to compromise the experience in the name of sales.

I hope they do it soon.
 

spatlese44

macrumors 6502
Dec 13, 2007
461
110
Milwaukee
I had to think about this one for a while. Seemed like there might be a problem where a "super account" could get created by a group pooling together their content, but then they would all have to share a single ID and someone could just lock everyone else out at any time by changing the password.

Merging accounts seems useful, but I like the umbrella concept also.

What happens in a divorce? Who get's the iTunes account?
 
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