'House' iCloud account for Apple TV's ?

[iTundra]

TV's in our house get all of their programming from Apple TV's on each. These are shared resources. For instance, the TV in our family room - several of us sit down to watch it, not just a single person with their personal iCloud account. Frequently there are questions of 'Dad, can you come sign in to your iCloud'. There are also privacy concerns with using personal iCloud accounts in this way.

I'm thinking that it might be best to have a 'House' account on iCloud that is the primary account on these rather than my or someone else's personal account and just include 'House' as a family member. Good idea? Bad idea? Issues?

Thanks,

 

[chrfr]

TV's in our house get all of their programming from Apple TV's on each. These are shared resources. For instance, the TV in our family room - several of us sit down to watch it, not just a single person with their personal iCloud account. Frequently there are questions of 'Dad, can you come sign in to your iCloud'. There are also privacy concerns with using personal iCloud accounts in this way.

I'm thinking that it might be best to have a 'House' account on iCloud that is the primary account on these rather than my or someone else's personal account and just include 'House' as a family member. Good idea? Bad idea? Issues?

Thanks,

You can add each person to the Apple TV. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210513

 

[HDFan]

I'm thinking that it might be best to have a 'House' account on iCloud

Have you tried family sharing?

How to download apps and content that your family members purchased - Apple Support

If you use purchase sharing, you can download apps and play content that your family members buy.

support.apple.com

Since you can't move purchases between iCloud accounts if you created a "Home" iCloud account your would have to repurchase everything to have it available on that account.

 

[mmomega]

Family Sharing can potentially get out of control, quick.
my kids went from no purchases for several months and then out of nowhere $600+ a week on in-app purchases that you can’t see from the purchases tab anywhere. The only way I knew it was them was the main account will send an email after each in app purchase.
Only my iCloud account would show my in app purchases, but either way. Just know things have the potential for getting out of control rather quickly.
then kids just shrug their shoulders like...? What do you want me to do about it? I didn’t know you had to actually pay for that stuff.
Out of sight out of mind.

 

[waw74]

Family Sharing can potentially get out of control, quick.
my kids went from no purchases for several months and then out of nowhere $600+ a week on in-app purchases that you can’t see from the purchases tab anywhere. The only way I knew it was them was the main account will send an email after each in app purchase.
Only my iCloud account would show my in app purchases, but either way. Just know things have the potential for getting out of control rather quickly.
then kids just shrug their shoulders like...? What do you want me to do about it? I didn’t know you had to actually pay for that stuff.
Out of sight out of mind.

there's a setting to prevent this
you can enable it on any account that's registered to an "under 18" Any time they want to make a purchase they have to get it approved by the main account before they can spend money.

Approve what kids buy with Ask to Buy - Apple Support (CA)

You can approve or deny a request before your child makes an accidental purchase.

support.apple.com

 

[mmomega]

there's a setting to prevent this
you can enable it on any account that's registered to an "under 18" Any time they want to make a purchase they have to get it approved by the main account before they can spend money.

Approve what kids buy with Ask to Buy - Apple Support (CA)

You can approve or deny a request before your child makes an accidental purchase.

support.apple.com

they aren’t under 18, my son is 17 and change but my daughter is in her 20’s. I don’t explicitly have them under a ask dad for every particular option. It’s an in app option for a game where the game gives credits and the credits run out, asks if you want more credits to continue. Pretty much it.
I’m not asking on how I can do anything about it, but bringing this up for others to be aware of.

 

[mjfutures]

they aren’t under 18, my son is 17 and change but my daughter is in her 20’s. I don’t explicitly have them under a ask dad for every particular option. It’s an in app option for a game where the game gives credits and the credits run out, asks if you want more credits to continue. Pretty much it.
I’m not asking on how I can do anything about it, but bringing this up for others to be aware of.

So you have a 20+ yr old on a "family" plan and she racks up $600 in app purchases and just shrugs.... haha.. hard to fault Apple for this, they have all the tools in place for parents to control a "family".

 

[mmomega]

So you have a 20+ yr old on a "family" plan and she racks up $600 in app purchases and just shrugs.... haha.. hard to fault Apple for this, they have all the tools in place for parents to control a "family".

I didn’t fault a company for it. i am stating that on a Shard account, things can happen. They can be minor, they can be extreme. It just is.
she paid her portion the following Week. there is no fault being thrown anywhere.

 

[iTundra]

Have you tried family sharing?

Yep. It's kind of a pain (minor but a pain nonetheless) for people to have to log in/out all of the time. The idea is to have an account that everyone can use without having to use their personal account or expose their personal data.

Since you can't move purchases between iCloud accounts if you created a "Home" iCloud account your would have to repurchase everything to have it available on that account.

Family sharing should eliminate that problem?

 

[HDFan]

Family sharing should eliminate that problem?

I was told by support to set up family sharing to allow access to all of the apps which I had purchased under different Apple accounts. I assume should work with video content but don't actually know. Best to try it and see if it works.

 

[atomnet]

Family sharing works for video content... kind of. You have to navigate to family sharing, pick the person who owns the content, and then you can navigate to it. Or if it's recently played on the home screen then you can just play it directly from there.

We have a "home account" setup. We originally set it up for second- and third-gen Apple TVs. We now also use it for the Apple TV app on a Fire TV Stick, and for Apple Music on a bunch of Amazon Echos (the Echos don't know who's playing music, and I don't want it messing up one person's play history). It seems to have worked out fairly well for us.

 

[chrfr]

Yep. It's kind of a pain (minor but a pain nonetheless) for people to have to log in/out all of the time. The idea is to have an account that everyone can use without having to use their personal account or expose their personal data.



Family sharing should eliminate that problem?

Did you not look at the link I put in post #2 of the thread about setting up multiple users on your Apple TV? You can use that in conjunction with Family Sharing too.