Question about family sharing

[RTF]

Hi there,

Just wondering about family sharing.
My wife and I both have an iPhone and an iPad.
Wife 5S+mini
Me 4 (soon to be 6)+iPad 4

All on iOS 8 except my old iPhone 4.

Plus lots of other Apple stuff, but I guess that irrelevant for family sharing.

Currently we use my Apple ID on all devices. On hers I turn of my iCloud mail and use her own Apple ID for Mail, iMessage and FaceTime.

The advantage is that we can share all apps, calendars, to do's, contacts and now also HandOff with these devices.
(I've received questions about the use of sharing contacts, but to us it's only an advantage, medical contacts, school contacts, Hotel contacts, even colleagues, they are on both of our phones. If something is up you can easily reach the desired contact. And it's not that you get a pop-up or something when a contact is added. It's just simply there)

How is that in Family sharing?

• Is it possible to automatically sync newly added contacts between the devices of different family members?

• Can we use HandOff between the different devices of different family members? HandOff is al lot easier and quicker that airdrop

• Or is it best to leave it as it is, and use Family Sharing for the kids devices when they are a bit older?

 

[RTF]

No one?

 

[overlyunderme]

No one?

No one can answer these questions yet because we can't get Family Sharing to work properly. It's still very buggy so we don't know what it's capable of.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Family Sharing is meant for sharing iTunes content, photos, videos, calendars, locations, and making Find My iPhone easier to deal with.

It's easy enough to copy contact info from your phone to your other half. You just send it through a text message, and it's a click for her to add it. I don't think we have contact sharing because it's a conflict of interest. My dad doesn't want my mom to have access to all his co-worker numbers for example.

Hand Off is made so you can work on someone on one device, and pick it up on another. You can't do something as simple as share a photo with it. AirDrop and it are two different things.

I'd say set it up anyway. You'll be able to stream your photo library to your wife, share a calendar, and use Find My iPhone. You can add your kids in when it's time.

I have my brother on mine. It's OK so far. He can see my purchases, and I can see his. But it doesn't have any indication of it in the App Store except in those tabs, so your kids would be able to ask to buy something you probably already owned, which defeats the purpose.

Oh yeah, and if you want that option, you're going to have to go into the Apple ID and change the birthday if you originally set a fake year. It should let you set that after you do that.

 

[RTF]

Thx! I'll leave it as it is for now...

The added value for us is when the kids grow older and get their own iPhone 11S or something lol.

Especially HandOff is a great feature. Much quicker with sharing websites or Numbers documents between me and my wife.

 

[RTF]

Ok, I gambled and activated family sharing.

One thing I don't get? I was under the assumption that all photos automatically were put in the shared family album. Or at least that was possible to do so?

If this is not possible, then there is absolutely no added value in family sharing.
The fun thing photostream is that photos we both take are shared with each other without the hassle of having to share them by hand after we made the photos.

There was a big fuzz by Apple that this was a great feature. But there is no difference between the shared family album and another album that you created yourself to share with friends?

 

[reckless2k2]

Family Sharing is meant for sharing iTunes content, photos, videos, calendars, locations, and making Find My iPhone easier to deal with.

Nailed it!!! Jessica was riht on the money.

It's not designed to do what you are talking about unless you have a shared iCloud account. That gets a little crazy.

If you want shared contacts for example, use a CardDav like Google if you aren't already. That may be a better option.

On all the devices in my house, home sharing is using an Apple iTunes account setup purely for purchases and then each device has its own iCloud account.
iTunes setting: theitunespay@email.com
iCloud/FaceTime/iMessages: me@email.com

Find my iPhone is the best reason and to control kid purchases.

 

[RTF]

Yes I had to find out for myself. Everything is now back the way it was.

Still strange, the fuzz about the shared family photoalbum bu Apple. It just the same as any shared photo album since ios 6.