Find My iPhone - Now Only a Primary iCloud Account Setting :(

[gimletmaker]

After installing iOS 7 on my iPhone and my two kid's iPhones, I was very disappointed to find out that iOS7 now disallows one to enable "Find My iPhone" on a secondary iCloud account. Our family setup was to have a "Family iCloud account" that everyone shared. This account was primary on my device (setup under iCloud settings) and secondary on everyone else's device (setup under Mail, Contacts, and Calendars). That way we shared one Contact list (each person has their own group), one Calendar (each person has their own iCal calendar), and most importantly, "Find My iPhone" was enabled under Mail, Contacts, and Calendars for the kids.

With this setup I was able to go to Find My iPhone and see where each family member's devices were at any time, all in one view, and they were able to do the same. Now I will need to either setup "Find My Friends" for everyone and they will need to do the same, or we will all need to login to each others iCloud accounts (not good) to check device locations. We can still share a common Calendar and Contact list, but there is no longer the ability to see ALL family members device locations in one "Find My iPhone" view. I understand that this was probably done in conjunction with the new security features included in Find My iPhone, but I'm not happy that this new "feature" had to come along with the security improvements.

This is definitely a step backwards in my judgement.

 

[OC513]

As you stated you can just use Find My Friends. Its just a one time set up and then it works just as you need/want it to.

 

[Sodner]

I thought I was the only one doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had two iCloud accounts where on the second account we shared only contacts and "Find my iPhone." (Not really necessary for calendars as these are share-able already.)

This enabled me to logon once and find 3 iPhones and 3 iPads. Now with iOS 7 my wife and daughter cannot be under this second iCloud account as only the primary iCloud account gets "Find my iPhone" access. This is horrible.

Now if my daughter misplaces her phone she has to logon with her account to find it. Sucks!

 

[grockk]

Can you just set your family account as primary? What parts of icloud are missing in secondary setup? Device backup maybe? We just have 3 devices and only use a shared primary account.

I'd set up find my friends and be done with it.

 

[Sodner]

Can you just set your family account as primary? What parts of icloud are missing in secondary setup? Device backup maybe? We just have 3 devices and only use a shared primary account.

I'd set up find my friends and be done with it.

No no no! Don't want the family sharing a photo stream!

 

[gimletmaker]

Sharing a primary iCloud account between users is a definite non-starter. Most of the items synced under iCloud are very personal, user specific, and aren't usually shared, such as bookmarks Reminders, Notes, Passbook, and as stated previously Photostream.

Not having the ability to see all my Family's device locations in one view really stinks and should be returned to the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar section or add this view to Find My Friends. Also, there is no "Find My Friends" for the iCloud web portal as far as I can see, which also makes using that as a substitute a problem.

 

[madsci954]

Send feedback to Apple, maybe they might add it back.

 

[Fireproof!]

I thought I was the only one doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had two iCloud accounts where on the second account we shared only contacts and "Find my iPhone." (Not really necessary for calendars as these are share-able already.)

This enabled me to logon once and find 3 iPhones and 3 iPads. Now with iOS 7 my wife and daughter cannot be under this second iCloud account as only the primary iCloud account gets "Find my iPhone" access. This is horrible.

Now if my daughter misplaces her phone she has to logon with her account to find it. Sucks!

Agreed - I used it just like this to track my wife's iphone and ipad and my daughter's iphone and ipad. Was nice to have all the devices show up on one screen. Now it's impossible. Glad to find out it's not just me missing a setting or something.

As a workaround - I'm now using Find My Friends app..

 

[Zcott]

Considering this is what Find My Friends is for, it's hardly a workaround.

 

[C DM]

Given new limitations/issues of how Find My Friends works in iOS 7 now, it's actually not that much of a workaround either.

 

[SanjeevRana]

Find My Friends is mostly intermittent nowadays ... mostly I get no location for the other phone even with Background Refresh on for both devices

 

[C DM]

Find My Friends is mostly intermittent nowadays ... mostly I get no location for the other phone even with Background Refresh on for both devices

The app has to pretty much be running (even just in the background) with background refresh on for it to have a decent chance of working. Kind if a bad change.

 

[djdsas]

+1

Disappointed as well.

I have 8 iOS family devices as well. Everyone has there
own primary iCloud account. I would leave find my iPhone
off on the primary, and add a 2nd universal iCloud account with
find my iPhone. It allowed me to track and find all my iOS devices
one one screen/account.

This is a really poor move

 

[E2EK1EL]

That's brutal, you know kids ain't gonna care to login to Find My Friends every other day if it's the soul purpose is their parents tracking them.

 

[Sodner]

Considering this is what Find My Friends is for, it's hardly a workaround.

Really NOT the same thing as Find my Phone considering the functionality to lock, erase, etc phones. I guess few people used this but for those that did it was a great way to simply locate a large number of devices.

 

[zorinlynx]

WHY do people share iCloud accounts? I'll never understand why anyone would go through this mess.

Not to mention, with seperate iCloud accounts each person gets their own 5GB data store.

iCloud accounts are not meant to be shared! You're just going to keep having problems because Apple didn't design it this way.

 

[Fireproof!]

Really NOT the same thing as Find my Phone considering the functionality to lock, erase, etc phones. I guess few people used this but for those that did it was a great way to simply locate a large number of devices.

This! I never had to worry about whether the device was signed into Find My Friends, or what those settings were. I used to be able to call up the Find my iPhone app on my iphone and see all of our devices at once.

And since most of the time, I was doing this because one of my daughters couldn't find her phone, it was also easy to then sound the TONE so we could find it in the house.

 

[tremlock]

WHY do people share iCloud accounts? I'll never understand why anyone would go through this mess.

Not to mention, with seperate iCloud accounts each person gets their own 5GB data store.

iCloud accounts are not meant to be shared! You're just going to keep having problems because Apple didn't design it this way.

Photo stream, purchasing an app once for all devices, iTunes Match

 

[Zcott]

Photo stream, purchasing an app once for all devices, iTunes Match

Purchasing an app works fine when you log into someone else's App Store account and download it. Not sure why you'd want everyone's photos in one photo stream, for sharing photos they invented shared photo stream.

Sharing accounts will always lead to issues like this.

 

[caesarp]

WHY do people share iCloud accounts? I'll never understand why anyone would go through this mess.

Not to mention, with seperate iCloud accounts each person gets their own 5GB data store.

iCloud accounts are not meant to be shared! You're just going to keep having problems because Apple didn't design it this way.

You don't understand the issue. It is not about sharing anything via icloud OTHER than find my iphone. In ios6 you could have your own personal icloud account for everything BUT find my iphone; then also create a shared icloud account with ONLY find my iphone enabled.

This allowed families to see ALL of their ios devices from ONE single find my iphone login. Much better, particularly if you have kids with ipods that they lose behind the couch (so you could send the ping sound). Now you can't do that. I can only see my personal devices in find my iphone.

So if my wife or kids lose their iphone, I will have to find a pc and logon with their individual logon to find it.

The old way was more convenient (but I guess less secure; which is way Apple does not allow it anymore?). No one from Apple has said anything though. So it is not clear if this was intentional or not.

 

[Rigby]

This allowed families to see ALL of their ios devices from ONE single find my iphone login. Much better, particularly if you have kids with ipods that they lose behind the couch (so you could send the ping sound). Now you can't do that.

So if my wife or kids lose their iphone, I will have to find a pc and logon with their individual logon to find it.

Note that you can log in with any account in the "Find my iPhone" iOS app too, so you don't need a PC for pinging someone else's device.

 

[caesarp]

Note that you can log in with any account in the "Find my iPhone" iOS app too, so you don't need a PC for pinging someone else's device.

True, but not as convenient as one universal login. And now I have to remember 3 different usernames/passwords. Me, wife, kids. And they will never remember.

 

[tremlock]

Purchasing an app works fine when you log into someone else's App Store account and download it. Not sure why you'd want everyone's photos in one photo stream, for sharing photos they invented shared photo stream.

Sharing accounts will always lead to issues like this.

And for iTunes Match?

 

[MisterPunchy]

Photo stream, purchasing an app once for all devices, iTunes Match

Our family has 7 iDevices for 5 people. Each person has their own icloud account for backup and management of their own PhotoStream, contacts, etc... For app purchases, the kids log into my wife's account for app-store purchases, so that when one buys, they can all download and use it. So, in Settings - they all have separate icloud logins, but use a common App Store login...

 

[Sodner]

Our family has 7 iDevices for 5 people. Each person has their own icloud account for backup and management of their own PhotoStream, contacts, etc... For app purchases, the kids log into my wife's account for app-store purchases, so that when one buys, they can all download and use it. So, in Settings - they all have separate icloud logins, but use a common App Store login...

With 7 devices and 5 people having ONE account to track all those devices would have been wonderful. Sadly Apple removed that ability in iOS 7.