Guidance on setting up new iPhone 5

[raf66]

Good morning everyone, and Merry Christmas. I've got a question about setting up a new iPhone 5 in our family, which already has one iPhone 5 and another iPhone 4.

As background, my son and daughter each have/had an iPhone 4 while I had a Droid X. This was a year or so ago, and since we have an iMac desktop as our family computer, our kids synced apps/contacts/etc. through our one iTunes account.

This summer/fall my son went swimming with his iPhone 4 so it no longer works. In September I got the iPhone 5 and bequeathed him my DX. I set the iPhone 5 up as new, but only after it got initially activated on my son's line since I used his upgrade (ok, maybe I'm a bad parent but he and my daughter had used mom and dad's upgrades for a couple years). Within 24 hours we had properly activated the iPhone 5 on my line and the DX was transferred to his line.

Obviously my iPhone 5 sync'd all my daughter and son's contacts since they used our iTunes account, but I've worked through that a bit (well, ok I haven't really worked through it. I've just lived with the fact that I have 1400 contacts of teenagers/college kids who I don't know on my iPhone. On second thought, maybe it's a good way to keep track of boyfriends/girlfriends).

We got my daughter the iPhone 5 for Christmas. We haven't activated it yet but I'm thinking we ought to have her get her own iTunes account now. She's a college student and lives on campus so it would seem that it's time for her to have a separate account. However, since she already has the iPhone 4 and all the contacts/music/etc. that exist on it, should she set up her new iPhone 5 from her existing (our) iTunes account, and then set up a new iTunes account for her afterward? Should we go ahead and set up a new iTunes account now and then have her activate her new iPhone 5 on the new iTunes account? I don't want her to lose her contacts and music et al., but it would seem to be a good time to set her up with her own personal iTunes account. I'm tired of sync-ing my iPhone and having it pick up all her dance music/college music that I didn't buy, and I'm also tired of having all of her college buddies' contacts on my iPhone.

Also, will setting up a separate iTunes account for her effect iCloud, since it's one account that's shared between us?

I hope I'm forming the question(s) correctly, and thanks for all your help.

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

 

[dictoresno]

sharing itunes accounts and dealing with merged contacts is a pain in the butt and im totally against it. everyone should have their own, with their own apps, backups and contacts. make her own itunes account and have her log in to her new phone with that. then have her make type in all her own contacts manually and then back that up to icloud.

 

[sulpfiction]

Agreed! IMO you'll regret sharing an iTunes account, although a lot of people do it. It is much easier and cleaner to manage if each user has their own account.

 

[raf66]

Thanks for the responses.

If we set up her iPhone 5 through a newly-created iTunes account, how will she retain all of the music and contact that are on the current account? Can she set up a new account and then transfer music over afterward from the already-existing iTunes account?

 

[Jordan921]

Sharing accounts is so bad. It's a pain to manage everything. Just have her make her own account. She could still sync with the computer and get the music and then sort through the contacts.