Family sharing is a failure

[jhfenton]

Not to be argumentative, but if your family members configure their own personal iCloud accounts on the devices, you clearly don't "own and control" them, even if you have paid for them sometime in the past.

Sharing content in families has always been a gray area legally (fair use etc.). Family sharing is just an attempt to create a proper licensing framework around it. It can also potentially prevent various problems that can arise when sharing accounts (just search this forum). Apple still needs to iron out some kinks though.

My kids do not have their own iCloud IDs either. We have Messages set up to receive their messages only on their specific iPads (by reference to separate non Apple ID email addresses on the account), but they share the same iCloud Apple ID. They are only 10 and 11 years old. I clearly control their devices.

And it's largely the same thing with my wife's iPad. All 4 iPads of different flavors are also on my developer account, and I test apps on them.

Only with my wife's new iPhone did she create a separate Apple ID for iCloud (messaging and photos and contacts are more critical on the iPhone than on iPads).

But I bought the phone and the phone is in my name because I get a Verizon discount through work. In my legal opinion, I am firmly within the bounds of the license.

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For me, the obvious advantage of Family Sharing is that instead of my kid having to hand me his phone (assuming we are even at the same location), and me typing in my Apple ID password every time he wants even a free app, I can just use Touch ID from my own phone when the request comes in.

However, I've had problems with some apps like Instagram and Swiftkey. I see they are "not available for family sharing", but what's the logic to this when they are free anyway and we can easily get around this by not using family sharing?

A second advantage to Family Sharing is I can give my wife the same approval privileges so either one of us can approve an app from our own phones.

The trick is that when one of my kids asks for something new that we've never bought before, free or not, I look it up on my iPad. If it looks OK, I buy it. And then I immediately cancel the download. My son or daughter can then download it on their iPad without me ever touching their device (because they can re-download previously purchased apps without intervention). This way, their device is never unlocked. And I can even approve an app purchase when we're not together.

Granted, the new approval system is slicker, but it's not worth the hassle yet.

(I'm also not sure how it handles iTunes Match music. We have a few thousand songs purchased from iTunes, but two or three times that many more ripped from CDs or purchased on Amazon and "Matched" in iTunes Match. I have read conflicting reports on whether "Matched" music will be available via family sharing. And I am not going to manage two or three or four separate music libraries.)

John

 

[mantan]

I'm using family sharing since beta... I've not had a single issue with it.

Wow - beginning to see how this crap gets through beta testing.....

 

[jrswizzle]

That's fine, I will just go back to breaking their agreement. No one will use family sharing if this is the way they implement it.

Huh....that's odd. I just checked and I could've sworn my "Family Sharing" toggle was switched on....

But you just said that no one will use it, and I - of course being a humble servant of MacRumors - would love to comply. But it seems....and bear with me here.....

People have other opinions and uses.....

I know, I know....I'm going to take some time and calm myself down. I hope too many people don't see this....its a radical concept and sometimes radical concepts have horrible consequences.



You want to know how to fix the problem you were describing? Delete the app and re download. The only reason that its not allowing you to update is that it still reads the app as being purchased (whether free or not) from another user's AppleID. I had the same issue on my MacBook - just delete the app, make sure you are logged into the correct AppleID and redownload it.

If that doesn't work, start over and the problem will be solved. Some developers haven't allowed sharing yet. Just like some haven't updated their apps to take advantage of the bigger displays or Extensions.

Over time, they will.

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My kids do not have their own iCloud IDs either. We have Messages set up to receive their messages only on their specific iPads (by reference to separate non Apple ID email addresses on the account), but they share the same iCloud Apple ID. They are only 10 and 11 years old. I clearly control their devices.

And it's largely the same thing with my wife's iPad. All 4 iPads of different flavors are also on my developer account, and I test apps on them.

Only with my wife's new iPhone did she create a separate Apple ID for iCloud (messaging and photos and contacts are more critical on the iPhone than on iPads).

But I bought the phone and the phone is in my name because I get a Verizon discount through work. In my legal opinion, I am firmly within the bounds of the license.

----------


The trick is that when one of my kids asks for something new that we've never bought before, free or not, I look it up on my iPad. If it looks OK, I buy it. And then I immediately cancel the download. My son or daughter can then download it on their iPad without me ever touching their device (because they can re-download previously purchased apps without intervention). This way, their device is never unlocked. And I can even approve an app purchase when we're not together.

Granted, the new approval system is slicker, but it's not worth the hassle yet.

(I'm also not sure how it handles iTunes Match music. We have a few thousand songs purchased from iTunes, but two or three times that many more ripped from CDs or purchased on Amazon and "Matched" in iTunes Match. I have read conflicting reports on whether "Matched" music will be available via family sharing. And I am not going to manage two or three or four separate music libraries.)

John

My wife hasn't had a problem accessing my iTunes Match music and I switched her over to her own AppleID and added her to my family share.

 

[kmichalec]

I like the security around my approving purchases. My kids have to ask for my password as well, but added security steps are always nice.

The only reason I don't use family sharing is that by keeping my cloud account on each phone we all automatically share a photo stream which all of us enjoy immensely. Its great seeing all the family pics rollup into one place. Using family sharing each family member would have to add them to the shared family album which wouldn't happen.

I think you can still do that, as long as you set up an iCloud setup on each device with the same iCloud account, and just turn photostream on, and everything else off.

For example, my phone has my iCloud account and iTunes account as myid@ icloud.com. On me daughters phone, she has the iTunes account and photostream as myid@iCloud.com, but her iMessage, Facetime, Mail, etc as herid@icloud.com. You could still do that even with familay sharing. In fact, I believe you can setup many different icloud accounts on a device, if you wanted one for mail, one for imessage, one for photostream, etc.