Q: 2 iPhones (wife/me), Made 2 PC User Profiles; Did I have to do 2 iTunes Accts?

[matt d]

So, my wife and I both have iphones. I was told that I should create 2 user profiles on our PC so that we could Sync our iphones to 2 different systems and not co-mingle our Contacts and maybe (calendar?). So I set up 2 looks.

We want to use our iPhones as our primary iPods. Note: we're coming from a world of 1 shared iTunes account up to now. And we'd be just fine keeping 1 account.

Now, this is where I'm asking you'all if I'm creating too much work. I downloaded a new version of iTunes for my new user profile and created a new iTunes account so that now my wife and I have 2 different accounts and we each have 2 different unique iTunes passwords on our iphones.

Yes--I've avoided all the syncing issues. What is killing me is i) the time to switch between profiles on our PC, and most of all ii) copying all the music over to a new drive on the PC (so it is now in 2 places, b/c of the 2 different itunes acct).

1st basic question: did I need to create 2 iTunes accounts or could I have stayed with 1 account and somehow had it viewed/transposed on my new user profile I created on our home PC?

If I did need to create a new one, then Did I need to copy all the music and move it to a new drive for the new iTunes ? the added files are probably slowing my pc, right?

2nd Q: On my 1st try copying the music to a new drive to match the new account, I haven't got the total songs on the new iTunes to match our original iTunes, so I'm missing music (pain!)--that I'll have to hunt around for and then...

Final Q: I haven't even approached whether we can interchange music that we each purchase on our seperate iTunes accounts on our iPhone (once they are synced down to our 2 seperate iTunes desktops)?

Is there an easier way to do this before I spend many more man hours on this? and upkeep...

i.e. find cover art for 2 seperate (yet identical iTunes collections) etc etc, i.e. hunt for music, i.e. copy over newly bought music on my iphone to hers? etc etc

 

[d21mike]

I use 1 iTunes Account so that I can share all of my purchased content on all my devices (2 iphones, 1 atv). That would be Music, Video and "Apps". Then for Apps I sync only the ones I want on each iPhone. Same for other items. For Picures I put all on both phones. And Movies I just put some on each.

But for Contacts and Calendar, I sync them OTA with MobileMe. You could also use Google Sync for free. Also, my wife does not like to maintain her phone so I can do it all on my desktop.

 

[matt d]

1 follow-up

So if I move my phone and hers back on to 1 iTunes account, and drop using 2 different p.c. profiles, will she automatically get all my contacts on her phone? or can I keep her from getting all my work contacts?

What do I do to do that?

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Are you trying to sync contacts (iphone) with the address book(osx) app? If not then you don't need to worry about your contacts mixing.

Final Q. Does the music you dloaded have DRM? If not that you should be able to sync it to any iphone no matter of account. And if it does have drm you can try redloading the songs (i think itunes removed most if not all of its drm) or you can use 3rd party tools to remove the drm.

Personally i would use 1 itunes account for all phones, so you can easily transfer music and apps.