New to apple - dealing with multiple iTunes accounts

Discussion in 'Mac Basics and Help' started by jitters, Feb 27, 2012.

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  1. jitters, Feb 27, 2012

    jitters macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2012
    #1
    Hi all, hoping someone here will be able to explain the best solution to my current quandary.

    My household consists of myself and my girlfriend and we both have an iPhone 4S each and individual iTunes accounts; which we use for music/app purchases.

    We each have our own laptops but we have made the decision to replace them with one Mac Book Pro. So here is the problem,

    We would like to the MBP to have one iTunes library on it and we want to be able to fully share our purchases on each of our iPhones - as we don't want to pay for the same album twice!

    I asked a guy in the apple store about this and he said "Homeshare" isnt suitable and we should just use the one iTunes account and authorise both iphones (i.e I stop using my account and we use my better half's a/c).

    But what happens here with regards to syncing apps and calendars? I don't want my phone to become flooded with apps I don't want and my calendar filled with girly spa days; vice versa for my gf.

    As you can probably tell, I'm new to apple - what is the best way to set up our accounts so we have a "central" iTunes library that all our purchases are stored on but also allow our iPhones to remain as "separate" entities able to access the "central store"?

    ^This make any sense?

    Thanks for reading
     
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  2. smellalot, Feb 27, 2012

    smellalot macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Dec 6, 2011
    #2
    You can keep you calendars/contacts separate by putting different accounts in Settings->iCloud on your iPhones.
    Will you also use iCal and Address Book on your Mac? In iCal both your appointments will show up, but you can show/hide calendars as you like.

    For purchases of music/apps you can share one of those accounts or a third account by putting it in Settings->Store on both phones. There you should deactivate automatic downloads if you don't wish to automatically receive an app/song/book your girlfriend downloaded.
    However you can see all the apps purchased by that account in the App Store under Updates->Purchased on both phones.
    That way you can also share an iTunes Match account.

    One problem though. I think you can't activate Photostream for two accounts at a time in iPhoto.
     
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