iPod touch Managing multiple iPod Touches with kids

[Trauma1]

I'm getting my nieces and nephew each their own iPod Touch for the holiday. I'm trying to think about the whole syncing situation, and how best for the parents to manage it. I'm not so much concerned about the music library as I am with the apps. I've done my due diligence and have looked for an answer, but what I've found is too old (pre-app store), only deals with songs, involves one device on multiple computers, multiple devices on multiple computers, multiple accounts on multiple computers, says it doesn't work on Windows etc.

They will be using a single family Windows computer. None of the kids have their own email address yet (they do their emailing with their parents). Nothing is set up, so it will be starting from a clean slate and hopefully make setting it up easier. I've thought about some scenarios. What would be the easiest way for all of them?

They create one universal account for the kids that is tied to the parents' email/credit card info.
Each kid has their own iTunes account that's tied to the parents' info.
Each kid has their own iTunes account that's not tied to parents' email, but no credit card info.
Have the parents create email addresses for each kid that they'll save for later use, and then create multiple accounts.
Just put on apps through USB.
Have one FaceTime account controlled by the parents.

What about the password for logging into the App Store? I imagine it's probably best to let the parents put it in the password as to avoid the kids forgetting it and/or buying things without telling them. And what about when the kids get older, is it easy to give them their own account without too much hassle?

When I started syncing my iPad to my MacBook, it would throw on all the iPhone apps that I downloaded over the air. It was frustrating at first until I went into iTunes and fixed it. If they were to create one universal kids account, would their apps be crossing all over the place? I'm not sure the parents would be able to figure that one out.

These kids are young enough where they're almost exclusively going to use this for games and other fun apps. And they're definitely going to use it outside of wifi areas (like when travelling). I know every family is different and what may work for one may not work for another. But I'm just curious to see what solutions people have come up with.

As far as the whole "should young kids have this"/ kids on the internet debates, I'm giving them all cases. That's all the responsibility I'm taking because they're not my kids.

 

[Drucifer]

I'm getting my nieces and nephew each their own iPod Touch for the holiday. I'm trying to think about the whole syncing situation, and how best for the parents to manage it. I'm not so much concerned about the music library as I am with the apps. I've done my due diligence and have looked for an answer, but what I've found is too old (pre-app store), only deals with songs, involves one device on multiple computers, multiple devices on multiple computers, multiple accounts on multiple computers, says it doesn't work on Windows etc.

They will be using a single family Windows computer. None of the kids have their own email address yet (they do their emailing with their parents). Nothing is set up, so it will be starting from a clean slate and hopefully make setting it up easier. I've thought about some scenarios. What would be the easiest way for all of them?

They create one universal account for the kids that is tied to the parents' email/credit card info.
Each kid has their own iTunes account that's tied to the parents' info.
Each kid has their own iTunes account that's not tied to parents' email, but no credit card info.
Have the parents create email addresses for each kid that they'll save for later use, and then create multiple accounts.
Just put on apps through USB.
Have one FaceTime account controlled by the parents.

What about the password for logging into the App Store? I imagine it's probably best to let the parents put it in the password as to avoid the kids forgetting it and/or buying things without telling them. And what about when the kids get older, is it easy to give them their own account without too much hassle?

When I started syncing my iPad to my MacBook, it would throw on all the iPhone apps that I downloaded over the air. It was frustrating at first until I went into iTunes and fixed it. If they were to create one universal kids account, would their apps be crossing all over the place? I'm not sure the parents would be able to figure that one out.

These kids are young enough where they're almost exclusively going to use this for games and other fun apps. And they're definitely going to use it outside of wifi areas (like when travelling). I know every family is different and what may work for one may not work for another. But I'm just curious to see what solutions people have come up with.

As far as the whole "should young kids have this"/ kids on the internet debates, I'm giving them all cases. That's all the responsibility I'm taking because they're not my kids.

I'd probably disable iTunes from syncing automatically this way you can manage all devices individually.

As for games and App Store accounts I would just create one account for all kids. Games and apps are tied to the account not to a specific device so a purchase on your account may be downloaded on all devices in the house hold. Also I wouldn't recommend having the parents credit card on their account. They can simply buy gift cards or receive them as a gift if they wish to make purchases, this way their purchases are controlled and huge charges don't spring up on the parents credit card bill. An e-mail address can be created for the account and the parents can manage it.

I know that is what I'll be doing when my kids are old enough to get their own iPod.

 

[jampat]

+1 more for one account with all of the ipods associated with it. You don't want to have to buy multiple copies of each game. You can setup the ipods to automatically grab all apps (which is convenient, but can create a mess) or you can manually select which apps to sync. On manual, anything johnny downloads will be backed up, as well as anything kate downloads, but unless you specifically select an app kate downloaded in johnny's itunes setup, it won't show up on his ipod (and vice-versa). As far as the email, the parents email is the easiest, there is suprisingly little junk that apple sends out and it is good to monitor what is being downloaded (especially if they give the kids the password). You could create a new email account, but that would be one more thing that needed to be checked. To put apps on through USB, I am pretty sure their still needs to be an associated itunes account and email, so that doesn't get you anything. As they get older, if they want separate accounts, someone would have to disassociate with the master account and lose access to all purchases in that account and start again (not necessarily a loss if they are all games for children). Personally, I still think the family account and manually managing apps is a great way to go.

If they want their own music, just create a playlist for each child and tell that childs ipod to only grab their list. This makes it easy to manage the music without having to go into the itunes settings.