apple apartment

[Larsib]

After moving in together with my girlfriend we`ve got quite a lot of apple products , and I`m wondering what I can do to make them work more seamless and productive together. We`ve got 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, 1 Apple TV, 1 Macbook Pro and 2 Macbooks. (and some old Iphones as well).. in addition the livingroom is set up with a tv and a bose Cinemate sound system.

I`ve thought about maybe buying a Mac Mini to hook up to the TV and use the ipads/iPhones as remotes for playing music etc, any other good advice?

 

[Corrosive vinyl]

connect everything with airport express

 

[talmy]

Certainly something anchored down you can use as a server. Doesn't need to be a Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server although that does have some advantages. A regular mini, probably with a large external drive if you need the space, will do. Do TimeMachine backups to it, share files. Presumably you have a wireless router.

 

[pjarvi]

If one of the MacBooks is not being used much, you can use it as a iTunes server. I've been using my 2006 BlackBook as one for the last 2 years without issue.

Turn on Home Sharing in iTunes so you can both share your iTunes libraries with one another. It has a 5 device limit though, so be careful with how many devices you use it with.

Consider getting a Time Capsule to setup a wireless network you can configure all your devices to use, and do Time Machine backups to.

 

[ChargerSteve]

software, not more hardware

I use a combination of BusySynch and MobileMe to keep me and my family's calendars, email and contacts all in synch across iPhones and Macs. Busy Synch lets me and my wife keep separate calendars for each of us and common things like a family calendar and calendars for each kid's activities (soccer, swimmin team, etc) all up to date across accounts and mobile me synchs everything across multiple devices. So if I find out my daughter's soccer practice has changed location, i can update the calendar on my iPhone and it's updated on iCal on our iMac (all user's accounts), my wife's IPhone and my daughter's iPhone. It's really pretty cool, although it really should be easier to achieve than it is (shouldn't need third party software like BusySych).

I've also setup single shared libraries for iPhoto and iTunes. This works for us although there's some intracacies involved in setting it up right (searching the forums helped me there and I don't even remember what all I did). The AppleTV uses the one shared iTunes account, so I only have to store stuff in one place (plus backup) and I only have to maintain tags, ratings, etc in one place (good as long as my wife agrees that what i think is a 4-star song is really a 4-star song).

 

[sheareb]

wow!!! perfect relationship.. whack in some sort of server and make sure you can email her to make lunch and dinner

 

[Giuly]

wow!!! perfect relationship.. whack in some sort of server and make sure you can email her to make lunch and dinner

iChat...
Use the oldest MacBook as a server. Put it in a closet, disable sleeping, hook up a nice hard drive and internet via ethernet and replace the Apple TV with a Mini.