I have a family of 4. We've always had our own techniques for ensuring contacts, music, etc., were properly shared or separated as appropriate. The other day, I got a new iMac (the other 3 household members will sync to).
Deciding I wanted to start clean, I've been carefully mapping out how we're gonna use iTunes, mail.app, and contact groups, etc. with the new iMac.
It dawned on me this morning that I'm way over-thinking this. For example, our music library has playlists of music that has not been purchased via iTunes (older music we ripped from our massive 90s CD collection). We just started doing this because iCloud allows us to quickly download purchased content from the Cloud.
Therefore, under music in iTunes, we just sync a particular playlist (wife's playlist, oldest child's playlist, youngest child's playlist). With iTunes Matching, we should be able to view most if not all of our music (assuming Apple has it on their servers). I know Garth Brooks and a few others have not yet approved use of iTunes.
All the recent news of iCloud beta made me realize I'll have similar capabilities with our contacts. Currently, we use groups within the contact.app to separate families, friends, business, etc. when syncing to iTunes. With iCloud, this is no longer needed. Each can maintain a separate @me.com email address and be completely isolated from the iMac. Sharing contacts wirelessly is has always been easily accomplished.
If video content is ever added to iCloud (movies), I don't ever see a need to "sync" besides making backup copies of each device to the computer. A simple restore brings you back. In other words, all the tabs at the top in iTunes.app will not be utilized as much.
Question: Will each iOS device in the house (even if using a different @me.com address) sync wirelessly overnight to the same iTunes.app for backups? If so, my life of constant syncing with all the iOS devices we have will drastically be simplified!
Cosmo
Deciding I wanted to start clean, I've been carefully mapping out how we're gonna use iTunes, mail.app, and contact groups, etc. with the new iMac.
It dawned on me this morning that I'm way over-thinking this. For example, our music library has playlists of music that has not been purchased via iTunes (older music we ripped from our massive 90s CD collection). We just started doing this because iCloud allows us to quickly download purchased content from the Cloud.
Therefore, under music in iTunes, we just sync a particular playlist (wife's playlist, oldest child's playlist, youngest child's playlist). With iTunes Matching, we should be able to view most if not all of our music (assuming Apple has it on their servers). I know Garth Brooks and a few others have not yet approved use of iTunes.
All the recent news of iCloud beta made me realize I'll have similar capabilities with our contacts. Currently, we use groups within the contact.app to separate families, friends, business, etc. when syncing to iTunes. With iCloud, this is no longer needed. Each can maintain a separate @me.com email address and be completely isolated from the iMac. Sharing contacts wirelessly is has always been easily accomplished.
If video content is ever added to iCloud (movies), I don't ever see a need to "sync" besides making backup copies of each device to the computer. A simple restore brings you back. In other words, all the tabs at the top in iTunes.app will not be utilized as much.
Question: Will each iOS device in the house (even if using a different @me.com address) sync wirelessly overnight to the same iTunes.app for backups? If so, my life of constant syncing with all the iOS devices we have will drastically be simplified!
Cosmo
