Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Best way to share iCloud with a spouse?

Sweet. I thought so. I saw photo stream as the "key" to this setup when I found out you could only use a "main" account for this feature (and docs/backups/etc).

Okay, so that leaves one question. How can I CHANGE my "main" account? It's set to the wrong one on the iPad (the phones won't be here until Friday). Do I just DELETE the one I have now and it'll give me a chance to set it up?

Or do I need to reset my iPad entirely? (no big deal as I lost all my apps when I did the upgrade anyway.. probably for the best.. it needed to be cleaned out and my wife will enjoy re-doing the angry birds levels ;)
 
Find my Friends

Thanks guys. I now have a headache from reading this thread. I seem to have a problem getting the Find My Friends app to work amongst all of my family members (who all share the same Apple ID). The app seems to think that whenever a person signs into the app, it is me, just on a different device). If I try sending an invitation request, it says I can't send an invite to myself.

I am guessing each person has to have a unique Apple ID to use this App. Can someone please confirm or deny this? Thanks.
 
DennisC17 said:
Sweet. I thought so. I saw photo stream as the "key" to this setup when I found out you could only use a "main" account for this feature (and docs/backups/etc).

Okay, so that leaves one question. How can I CHANGE my "main" account? It's set to the wrong one on the iPad (the phones won't be here until Friday). Do I just DELETE the one I have now and it'll give me a chance to set it up?

Or do I need to reset my iPad entirely? (no big deal as I lost all my apps when I did the upgrade anyway.. probably for the best.. it needed to be cleaned out and my wife will enjoy re-doing the angry birds levels ;)
Click to expand...

Just delete the account. Go into the iCloud settings under Settings>iCloud. Delete account. It will tell you photo stream deleted. It will also ask about keeping contacts and cal on device. I assume you want to just get rid of everything. Once that is done, just go back to it and enter in the master iCloud account.
 
Heres what I want to do:

I want to keep our photos we take kept separate, off each others iPhones, but I would like to have the photos we take sync to our iMac.

We have a @me acct that we use for contacts,mail and calendar that we share and our account we use to make purchases is sbcglobal.net

How am I suppose to get this in order?
 
txfeinbergs said:
Thanks guys. I now have a headache from reading this thread. I seem to have a problem getting the Find My Friends app to work amongst all of my family members (who all share the same Apple ID). The app seems to think that whenever a person signs into the app, it is me, just on a different device). If I try sending an invitation request, it says I can't send an invite to myself.

I am guessing each person has to have a unique Apple ID to use this App. Can someone please confirm or deny this? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Nevermind, figured it out. Each user will have an apple ID specifically for iCloud, and we will share the same apple ID for the Store App. That worked. Not sure how the heck the average person is supposed to figure this out.
 
Not sure how the heck the average person is supposed to figure this out.
Click to expand...

Not very "Apple" of them, that's for sure... It isn't supposed to "just work"?

I guess we're holding it wrong.
 
I kept it simple

with my daughter's phone and iPad and my phone and iPad. I used my Apple ID for the store and for the cloud for my devices. For hers, I used my Apple ID for the store, but for the cloud I made a new one for her. This way, her contacts, calendars, etc. remain separate from mine.

Photos are a non-issue, because we both have 11-12 gbs each, and I didn't want to buy storage. So, I turned photo stream off and we'll each back up our own photos to our computers.
 
Yikes! Seems like everyone has similar but slightly different issues. I know the info is probably all there in the thread but it's making my brain hurt trying to pull out what I want for my wife!

Here's our current setup:

2 apple ids used for iTunes (thanks to home sharing, this isn't a problem, except for automatic downloads. I guess we could start using one from now on though)
1 ex-MobileMe address/account (husbandandwife@me.com)

2 macbook pros
2 iPhones
1 pad

Like this original poster, I want to be able to share/sync contacts and calendars, maybe photo stream too.

iMessage isn't a problem because we can use our "iTunes" ids.

Our current shared me.com email isn't a problem- we used it for wedding planning and doesn't need to stay (I.e. we can lose being able to read each others emails, it doesnt work great in any case).

I'm not sure whether it's best to keep one master iCloud account "husbandandwife" or create new ones for each of us, and reshare our calendars?

Itd be nice to be able to sync documents, but then I guess we could always login to iwork.com with the others iCloud account?

I guess I don't want auto update apps appearing on my wife's iPhone most of the time...
 
Hmm, not too sure about using google calendars. I tried that before an either iCal or googles syncing messed stuff up! It might be fixed now of course, but I'd rather only be syncing to one place.

I'm also slowly (very slowly) trying to migrate away from googles services, though I doubt I will be able to get rid of it entirely!


Does anyone have any thoughts about shared reminders? I'm in two minds about whether or not we should try to share them! On one hand it's nice if my wife can set a reminder for me to get the sopping when I get home, but also I don't need her to be reminded that I need to get new guitar strings...
 
donbenjy said:
Does anyone have any thoughts about shared reminders? I'm in two minds about whether or not we should try to share them! On one hand it's nice if my wife can set a reminder for me to get the sopping when I get home, but also I don't need her to be reminded that I need to get new guitar strings...
Click to expand...

Can't check right now, but doesn't Reminders allow you to create different lists? So you could have your personal list and a shared list; your wife then only needs to have the shared list selected.
 
NightFox said:
Can't check right now, but doesn't Reminders allow you to create different lists? So you could have your personal list and a shared list; your wife then only needs to have the shared list selected.
Click to expand...

Exactly. You both can add each others iCloud accounts. You can choose to have her reminders show up and be shared but she can by default keep your off but always have the option to turn them on.
 
I know when I met my girlfriend we had already established pretty extensive app purchases, and we got around sharing apps by using "home sharing" (since we now live together). So people who relied on "home sharing" and multiple itunes/apple ids don't get any real benefit from icloud as far as app sharing? That really sucks...:(

I kind of like having seperate itunes ids
 
NightFox said:
iOS5: Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Add Account...

OS X: System Preferences>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>+
Click to expand...

This is asking me to create a new Apple ID, not an iCloud account... would it then need Credit Card info and all the rest? That's not what we want... we just want a third email like the other posts suggest.

How do I just create a third iCloud account?

edit: wait... my bad. It's an "Apple ID" but only an iCloud one... just to confuse things more, so it's all good!
 
slimbek said:
This is asking me to create a new Apple ID, not an iCloud account... would it then need Credit Card info and all the rest? That's not what we want... we just want a third email like the other posts suggest.

How do I just create a third iCloud account?
Click to expand...

I wasn't answering how to create a new iCloud account, I was saying to the OP how to add an existing second account, such as a spouse's account, to a device.
 
txfeinbergs said:
Nevermind, figured it out. Each user will have an apple ID specifically for iCloud, and we will share the same apple ID for the Store App. That worked. Not sure how the heck the average person is supposed to figure this out.
Click to expand...
It definitely isnt very intuitive for families where you want to share some things (reminders, calendars, contacts) but you dont want to share others (email, photos).

We ended up with settling for a single ID because sharing calendars and reminders are essential for our family, but this comes at the expense of losing out on using email or photo stream.
 
urkel said:
It definitely isnt very intuitive for families where you want to share some things (reminders, calendars, contacts) but you dont want to share others (email, photos).

We ended up with settling for a single ID because sharing calendars and reminders are essential for our family, but this comes at the expense of losing out on using email or photo stream.
Click to expand...

another issue with only a single ID is you only have 5GB of storage combined, instead of 5GB for each family member.

My iPhone backup alone is 1GB, my iPad might be another 1GB, I'm sure the rest of it would fill up fast....
 
hi

I may be being really stupid but can somebody help with the following -

I share my MBA with my GF - she has her own log in and seperate itunes account ID and we both have iPhones. At the moment I have set up her iPhone for icloud but the MBA does not appear as a device (but it does on my account).

Am I right in thinking that you can only have one iCloud association with one macbook, even though you have separate user log in's?

thanks
 
tim0409 said:
hi

I may be being really stupid but can somebody help with the following -

I share my MBA with my GF - she has her own log in and seperate itunes account ID and we both have iPhones. At the moment I have set up her iPhone for icloud but the MBA does not appear as a device (but it does on my account).

Am I right in thinking that you can only have one iCloud association with one macbook, even though you have separate user log in's?

thanks
Click to expand...

No, each OSX account can be associated with a different iCloud account. (Which requires you each have your own different iCloud account, of course.) Go into the iCloud settings for each login. That's how my wife and I are set up on our single iMac with different OSX accounts.
 
elistan said:
No, each OSX account can be associated with a different iCloud account. (Which requires you each have your own different iCloud account, of course.) Go into the iCloud settings for each login. That's how my wife and I are set up on our single iMac with different OSX accounts.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - just need to work out why the MBA is not appearing as a device in the itunes icloud settings....
 
add me to the officaly confused list
we use the same apple ID (joeblow@gmail.com) for two iphones and one ipad.

i've been reading that we can keep our itunes account as the gmail, but when i try and make the icloud the new @me.com account it switches back to the @Gmail when it logs in.

im thoroughly lost.

i thought i read in there that we can all use a different iCloud login but keep the itunes/app store the same on all 3 devices ?
 
Share with your wife?

Why does she need iCloud? She doesn't have time because he should be in the kitchen making my dinner!!!

BOOYAH:cool:
 
I have two iPads on one iCloud account I have just noticed with both backed up to cloud, I only have 1gb left out of the 5 gb free storage. Is it still better to backup to PC and leave the cloud free for other data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back