Family computer setup recomendation

[Chadest]

My brother and his wife both use iPhones and Macs, but they’re about to have twins and need to upgrade their old machines. The goals are:

• Have a shared contacts list. When one ads a new contact, the other gets it.
• Shared system for notes
• A single destination for all their photos, to collect, organize, archive and share
• An easy way to backup their content to a different destination drive
• Have all of the above in a simple, non-technical arrangement that once set up, they can manage on their own

Too much to ask? I hope not.


My assumed solutions is:

• Use one apple/iCloud account for everyone (Takes care of contacts and maybe adds new iCloud email address that could be joint and only used for subscriptions and junk, but also all provide the ‘foundation’ to connect to and share the Notes app.
• Photos? Apple’s Photos app seems the only choice.
• For backup, I’m less sure. I like Propaganda Productions simple Deja Vu app. Choose what to backup, choose where, choose when and yer done.
• Pack all this into a mac mini connected to a TV, plus an external drive for separate backups

What am I missing? How do you organize and share your ‘stuff’ in your family?
Thanks!

 

[flyfish29]

My wife and I have one apple iCloud account we share for family stuff including photos, contacts, calendar, notes. We put all our family events on iCal and sync with both phones and three computers (home and 2 work computers). Contacts and notes are the same. However, we don't use Apple photos really. I may jump into Apple photos to edit a photo or email a photo. So with apple photos we have access to each others pics if we want through the Photo stream.

We instead use Google Photos on both phones. It works flawlessly We do not have a digital camera anymore so all photos are on phones. Google photos backs up all photos so no computer is needed for a backup of photos.

I assume they will want a computer to surf the internet? For surfing we prefer our laptops and would not want to surf the internet on a tv. I think having a mac mini seems unnecessary unless they really want to surf on a tv- Just having the two phones and set them up correctly...then you are all set. Then they could even have a Chromebook or two to surf and access everything through google photos, or the iCloud website. No backup drives needed, no mac-mini. Or they could go Apple Macbook Air laptop if they need more functionality to their computer.

 

[Fishrrman]

Could you set it up this way?
- a "family account" for all users (with pics, etc.)
- a private account for the husband (personal email, etc.)
- a private account for the wife (personal email, etc.)

 

[kohlson]

I've never really understood the practicality of shared credentials. That said, many people I know and respect use this approach.

I understand the need you've outlined, and it seems to me that's an unfilled market opportunity. Capabilities many would want, without having to get a master's degree in how to do it.

Finally, I recommend Time Machine for backups, which has a fundamentally better approach: the default is back up everything, except those things you specifically say not to. It backs up, transparently, and is free. One less thing to worry about.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

My brother and his wife both use iPhones and Macs, but they’re about to have twins and need to upgrade their old machines. The goals are:

• Have a shared contacts list. When one ads a new contact, the other gets it.
• Shared system for notes
• A single destination for all their photos, to collect, organize, archive and share
• An easy way to backup their content to a different destination drive
• Have all of the above in a simple, non-technical arrangement that once set up, they can manage on their own

Too much to ask? I hope not.


My assumed solutions is:

• Use one apple/iCloud account for everyone (Takes care of contacts and maybe adds new iCloud email address that could be joint and only used for subscriptions and junk, but also all provide the ‘foundation’ to connect to and share the Notes app.
• Photos? Apple’s Photos app seems the only choice.
• For backup, I’m less sure. I like Propaganda Productions simple Deja Vu app. Choose what to backup, choose where, choose when and yer done.
• Pack all this into a mac mini connected to a TV, plus an external drive for separate backups

What am I missing? How do you organize and share your ‘stuff’ in your family?
Thanks!

Apple have family sharing allowing you to do all this and control your kids iOS devices And macs.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201060

As for back ups time machine is great and keeps your whole system backed up and any changes by the hour, I would use a NAS for this with a family so you can all back up wirelessly.

 

[flr]

My wife also has my iCloud account on her iPhone and MacBook Air. This works great for shared contacts and Photos on Mac. But with Photos on iPhone we a problem. You cannot use one account on two iPhones. My wife gets my pictures on her MacBook Air but not on her iPhone. To get the pictures from her iPhone on our Mac we need to connect with the cable and do a file transfer. Has anybody found a solution for this?

Using a shared album isn't an option because: "A shared album can hold up to 5000 photos and videos. If you reach your iCloud Photo Sharing limit, you need to delete some photos or videos before adding new ones. "

 

[hanser]

My wife also has my iCloud account on her iPhone and MacBook Air. This works great for shared contacts and Photos on Mac. But with Photos on iPhone we a problem. You cannot use one account on two iPhones. My wife gets my pictures on her MacBook Air but not on her iPhone. To get the pictures from her iPhone on our Mac we need to connect with the cable and do a file transfer. Has anybody found a solution for this?

Using a shared album isn't an option because: "A shared album can hold up to 5000 photos and videos. If you reach your iCloud Photo Sharing limit, you need to delete some photos or videos before adding new ones. "

But you can share up to 200 albums, making that a million photos you can share. Might suffice?

 

[Chadest]

Thanks you guys!
Hey @flyfish29, glad to hear sharing the one apple account works for you guys. Google’s service is pretty stellar, but their practice of reducing the size of your images has kept me away. After looking at it again the compression doesn't seem to be an issue. You make a good point about mac mini vs a laptop when needing to surf the web, laptop is going to be way more convenient.

@kohlson I don’t use time machine, but you’re right-for this low-tech, hands-off setup, it’s the way to go.

@Samuelsan2001 Thanks for the link, guess I need to compare the family sharing experience vs just sharing the same apple account. NAS is a good call, do you recommend any particular one?

@flr This is interesting, not sure why it wouldn’t work on two phones. My account is used on my iPhone and iPad (and Mac) and there’s no issue

 

[ignatius345]

Multiple people sharing one Apple ID is going to mean total confusion with iMessage and some serious clutter with Photos. iCloud has some great and more granular sharing now, which is worth considering. I'm using many of the below methods.

- Notes: Different Apple IDs can share and collaborate on individual notes. I don't think you can share *all* notes, though. It's a one-at-a-time kind of thing.

- Photos: Easy to create shared galleries that everyone can add to, with different Apple IDs. With one shared Apple ID, every single picture or screenshot everyone takes is going to show up on everyone else's devices. It will get messy real quick, I bet.

- Contacts: No way to share these with iCloud, but if you sync your contacts through a Google account, each device could be pointed toward the same account and it should all sync very nicely. Come to think of it, you could do this for Notes as well I believe. I'm syncing my own contacts with Google on both MacOS and iOS, for unity with Gmail, and it works very nicely.

- Backups: multiple machines can back up to a shared Time Machine drive (or Time Capsule, wirelessly), no problem at all. As far as iOS devices, each can back up to iCloud separately as well.

- App & iTunes purchases: Family Sharing is great. I'm using it with my wife and it's wonderful and easy. Separate Apple IDs, but apps only have to be purchased once to be available to everyone. All billing goes through one account, which makes things easier.

- iCloud Storage: also part of Family Sharing -- buy one big pool of iCloud storage (we use 2TB) and that should be enough for everyone's photos and backups and such.

- Sharing files: for this, I recommend Dropbox. There's no way yet (that I know of) for separate Apple IDs to collaborate on an iCloud folder -- but it's very easy in Dropbox to create one folder and give multiple people access to it. It's a very clean and functional solution to sharing files.

 

[kohlson]

@flr This is interesting, not sure why it wouldn’t work on two phones. My account is used on my iPhone and iPad (and Mac) and there’s no issue

Sharing an iCloud account is a bad idea. It could be a good idea if you don't mind both phones ringing when there's an incoming call, texts showing up on both, and so on. This would be a fascinating study, especially if one works in a large corporation. A friend of mine shares with his wife, and they, in his words, put up with it. But they've made the decision to untangle.

To be clear, I have my iCloud account on several Macs, an iPhone, and an iPad. It's not a problem -- they're all mine. I want them to all ring/alert at the same time. (Side note, my wife hates that feature, and texts go only to her phone, not her MBA.)

But if they want to share, be sure to set up a strict "iPhone Agreement," with a designated text deleter, phone answering and voice mail administration protocols, and so on.

 

[tillsbury]

Definitely Family Sharing. That's what it's all about. You can then choose what calendars you show (there is likely to be a "family" one and a "private between you and your wife" one at the very least).

Time machine for backup, definitely. This can be set up to a NAS such that everyone's computer is backed up.

 

[Tech198]

My brother and his wife both use iPhones and Macs, but they’re about to have twins and need to upgrade their old machines. The goals are:

• Have a shared contacts list. When one ads a new contact, the other gets it.
• Shared system for notes
• A single destination for all their photos, to collect, organize, archive and share
• An easy way to backup their content to a different destination drive
• Have all of the above in a simple, non-technical arrangement that once set up, they can manage on their own

Too much to ask? I hope not.


My assumed solutions is:

• Use one apple/iCloud account for everyone (Takes care of contacts and maybe adds new iCloud email address that could be joint and only used for subscriptions and junk, but also all provide the ‘foundation’ to connect to and share the Notes app.
• Photos? Apple’s Photos app seems the only choice.
• For backup, I’m less sure. I like Propaganda Productions simple Deja Vu app. Choose what to backup, choose where, choose when and yer done.
• Pack all this into a mac mini connected to a TV, plus an external drive for separate backups

What am I missing? How do you organize and share your ‘stuff’ in your family?
Thanks!

Using icloud for all is the most effective, but that also means security goes down, as any user connected to this one account can do the same things you do.. (purchase, download, delete contacts etc.. icloud documents etc..)

Best to get Family sharing. (you pay extra for this), so your will be in control. Any purchases or changes must be approved by you as the main holder. And the other users will be "second""third"etc

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201060

 

[Doc C]

Perhaps I have over complicated things, but this works for my family:

Create a google account and use it for shared calendars and contacts.
Set up each device with their own iCloud account but turn off calendars and notes and contacts
Add the shared account from Google, and turn on only calendars and notesand contacts

Voila - individual emails but shared contacts, calendars, and notes
And shared backup for photos too (our phones don’t take pics over the size limit, though videos are counted against the total)

For documents, either iCloud family sharing or Dropbox works nicely

 

[tillsbury]

You don't pay for family sharing. Try it. You (and your partner) can authorise transactions on behalf of your kids. Everyone messages separately. Apps can be installed for anyone on the family.

 

[wecksell]

The best way to do this is three accounts: yours, hers, and a family one.

You and the partner each have your own apple IDs for photos, iMessage, etc.
The shared account is for buying apps and for calendar and contacts.

The only catch is that while an iOS or Mac device can use multiple iCloud IDs at once, windows is limited to one. (In my family, my apple ID is used for all purchases, while my wife's is used for the shared address book and calendar as she uses windows. We ditched the third shared ID when she moved to windows.)

Family sharing is free and also works, but has some disadvantages, such as a lack of shared calendar and contacts. Depending on how much your kids pollute the calendar / contacts, that may or may not be a benefit.

---matt

 

[Mikael H]

Family sharing is free and also works, but has some disadvantages, such as a lack of shared calendar

My wife and I are using a shared calendar all the time, seeing each other's schedules across our respective iCloud accounts. No need to share accounts for that...

 

[Ruggy]

Multiple people sharing one Apple ID is going to mean total confusion with iMessage and some serious clutter with Photos. iCloud has some great and more granular sharing now, which is worth considering. I'm using many of the below methods.

- Notes: Different Apple IDs can share and collaborate on individual notes. I don't think you can share *all* notes, though. It's a one-at-a-time kind of thing.

- Photos: Easy to create shared galleries that everyone can add to, with different Apple IDs. With one shared Apple ID, every single picture or screenshot everyone takes is going to show up on everyone else's devices. It will get messy real quick, I bet.

- Contacts: No way to share these with iCloud, but if you sync your contacts through a Google account, each device could be pointed toward the same account and it should all sync very nicely. Come to think of it, you could do this for Notes as well I believe. I'm syncing my own contacts with Google on both MacOS and iOS, for unity with Gmail, and it works very nicely.

- Backups: multiple machines can back up to a shared Time Machine drive (or Time Capsule, wirelessly), no problem at all. As far as iOS devices, each can back up to iCloud separately as well.

- App & iTunes purchases: Family Sharing is great. I'm using it with my wife and it's wonderful and easy. Separate Apple IDs, but apps only have to be purchased once to be available to everyone. All billing goes through one account, which makes things easier.

- iCloud Storage: also part of Family Sharing -- buy one big pool of iCloud storage (we use 2TB) and that should be enough for everyone's photos and backups and such.

- Sharing files: for this, I recommend Dropbox. There's no way yet (that I know of) for separate Apple IDs to collaborate on an iCloud folder -- but it's very easy in Dropbox to create one folder and give multiple people access to it. It's a very clean and functional solution to sharing files.

[doublepost=1517846915][/doublepost]This is a very good revue of the situation in my experience and I agree with everything above. I don't need to expand on this as it's already very well explained and accurate.
I would just add that I also use a third party password manager get around the limitations outlined (and also to use in browsers other than safari).
I also use a Synology NAS and it's a much cheaper solution for everyone to back up their photos than paying for cloud storage. It's also a great way of sharing notes and secure documents, has a cloud sharing feature etc. Plenty of features and functions there that work really well.
I love Family sharing and it is much more useful now you can share storage and having some paid for Apple storage is still a good idea but it quickly gets really expensive. Very useful for backing up the phones for example.
Yes, both google and amazon give plenty of photo and music storage these days, if you want to give your data to google or amazon. Much better to pay for your own NAS I believe.

 

[ignatius345]

I would just add that I also use a third party password manager get around the limitations outlined (and also to use in browsers other than safari).

I'm big on 1Password for this. It's a little pricey but the family plan lets everyone have their own personal vault, as well s as a shared vault for "household" passwords like utility bills, Netflix and the like.
[doublepost=1517851662][/doublepost]

My wife and I are using a shared calendar all the time, seeing each other's schedules across our respective iCloud accounts. No need to share accounts for that...

Same here. iCloud shared calendars sync instantly and with zero conflicts, in our experience. My wife and I have our own separate calendars for our own things, but share one for things we do together.

 

[tillsbury]

My wife and I are using a shared calendar all the time, seeing each other's schedules across our respective iCloud accounts. No need to share accounts for that...

Absolutely. In fact, you can choose the sharing. My wife and I have a "private" shared calendar (just me and her for things we don't want the kids to see), and a "family" calendar (shared by everyone), as well as our own personal ones. All visible simultaneously, coded by colour. I don't understand why people are saying you can't have a shared calendar with family sharing -- it's just not true.

 

[Tech198]

You don't pay for family sharing. Try it. You (and your partner) can authorise transactions on behalf of your kids. Everyone messages separately. Apps can be installed for anyone on the family.

Your right,, i was thinking of Apple music for the family.