Apple ID Looking for advice: How best to live with multiple Apple ID accounts?

[hipnetic]

I'm one of those "old timers" that carries the burden of having two different Apple IDs. If you know what I'm talking about (probably because you're in the same situation as me) and you're especially knowledgeable about this and how to best navigate through the rest of your "Apple life" with this burden/curse, please read on and teach me.

If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, it's probably best for you to stop reading this post/thread immediately, count your blessings, and move on. Please don't post a reply here, because you'll probably just offer incorrect advice.

So with that out of the way, here's my current situation:

Apple ID #1) Older Apple ID: john-smith@hotmail.com (changed to protect me from spam - sorry John)

• Yes, it's a Hotmail account. No, I'm not a boomer.😜 FWIW, this Hotmail account is actually my most-used personal email account (i.e., the one I get most spam sent to).
• This Apple ID is the one I traditionally have used for all iTunes purchases (e.g., iOS App Store purchases, iTunes movie purchases).
• On my personal iPhone, this is the Apple ID I choose as the "Media & Purchases" account.
• On all of our household Apple TV boxes, under my "John Smith" user profile, this is the Apple ID I have chosen as the "Store" account (used for media libraries, subscriptions, rentals, and purchases).
• This is the Apple ID account tied to the Apple Card I recently applied for (because I didn't realize the implications of being logged into this Apple ID on my MacBook while applying for the card).

Apple ID #2) My newer personal Apple ID: john-smith@me.com (aka @icloud.com)

• This is the account tied to my 2TB Apple One plan (with family sharing to my wife and daughter).
• On my personal iPhone, this is the Apple ID I choose as the primary account it's tied to.
• On all of our household Apple TV boxes, under my "John Smith" user profile, this is the account I have chosen as the "iCloud" account (used to save data and access HomeKit and iCloud Photos).

I know that Apple won't merge Apple ID accounts, and I've got a lot of past iTunes movie purchases, so this is how I'm living.

And I feel like I may have already learned something new just while typing up this post and detailing some specifics (e.g., it just hit me that my Apple TV settings are specific to my personal user profile, so I should investigate adding a profile for my wife to see how that might be useful).

OK, so on to some questions...

1. As noted above, I recently applied for (and got accepted for) the Apple Card (credit card), but was signed in (or entered in some field) my old "used for iTunes movie purchase and apps" iTunes account (john-smith@hotmail.com). I know now that I should have used my john-smith@me.com Apple ID, and I've learned (via some Googling) that they can't/won't "fix" that. So I believe that my options are to either:
   
   a) Close that account and re-apply for it again the "right" way.
   
   b) On my iPhone, temporarily sign out of my john-smith@me.com Apple ID account, temporarily sign into my john-smith@hotmail.com Apple ID account, add the new card to my Wallet, share it with my john-smith@me.com Apple ID account (giving that account co-owner access rights - e.g., to pay bills, etc.) as well as sharing it with my wife's Apple ID account, and then sign back out of the john-smith@hotmail.com account, and back into my john-smith@me.com account.
   
   Are there any important implications of choosing option (a) vs (b) that I may not be aware of?
   
   
2. It still makes sense for me to continue to purchase all iOS apps and iTunes movies via my john-smith@hotmail.com Apple ID account, correct? I'm assuming that this is required in order for me to see "one big list" of purchased movies on my Apple TV. Or can I and my wife purchase things on our other Apple ID accounts, share them with each other and the john-smith@hotmail.com account, and the Apple TV will be smart enough to merge them all together into "one big list"?
   
   
3. Any other use cases that I'm leaving out? Any other words of wisdom some of you can share with me, and anyone else in a similar situation who may be reading this post and looking to learn something?

 

[hipnetic]

...and right after posting this, I see that there's actually a stickied guide at the top of this forum/channel:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/appleids-mobileme-icloud-and-sharing-a-guide.1248112/

It's currently 7 pages long, but I think I'll head over there and start reading.

 

[hipnetic]

...and I'm back. I just read (most) of the first post of that other thread, and then skimmed through the rest of the thread, and it looks like it doesn't cover any aspect of the Apple Card (credit card), and my other general question may still be worth asking in this new thread of mine, too.

 

[hipnetic]

Another question (but possibly covered by one of my other questions):

4. My wife's iPhone seems to be using her @me.com Apple ID for "Media & Purchases". She has "Family Sharing" enabled, and is sharing with me (and our daughter). Is this the best way to have this configured, or would it be better if she instead was pointing this at my @hotmail.com (where I purchase all of my apps and movies and then share with my family)?

 

[AZhappyjack]

Clearly Apple screwed the pooch when it started offering "family sharing" for the AppleID, especially as it applies to iTunes, the App Store and "services" in general (e.g., all purchases through Apple).

Like you, I started way back when there was just one AppleID for everything... so my wife and I used the same AppleID so that we could share purchases through iTunes and the App Store... but when we tried to share a calendars and contacts, it all fell apart quickly.

We each created new AppleIDs for our personal stuff (calendars, contacts, passwords, etc)... but kept the oringal AppleID for iTunes and App Store purchases (because abandoning it would have meant throwing away past purchases)... and again, there was no family sharing for iTunes, etc yet.

Then Apple introduced the family sharing option for iTunes and the App Store... but the structure that Apple introduced for managing this did not fit with what we already had in place... and it was a huge cluster####.

I set up the family thing, added my wife to the group and we could easily share stuff like calendars, reminders, etc, and had the common AppleID for iTunes and the App Store (and subsequent "services")... I have since added a one grandchild and my Apple ID that I created to share App Store purchases with a non-profit that I serve at... and it's still a massive cluster####... especially when I want to do something that I haven't done before... I have to stop and think it through so as to not screw it up worse.

My wife and I have Apple Cards (credit cards) under our separate Apple IDs using Family Sharing on that. (sidebar: That's another PITA, as my card account is the primary and I get all of her charges, but NOT her Apple Cash.)

Bottom line, there's not a lot to be done from our perspective (the user who's paying the freight) except to swallow hard and try to navigate this tangled mess. Apple should be able to fix the, but, so far, they're far too busy breaking other parts of their ecosystem. Little Timmy Cook and his minions have been really good for the stockholders, but pretty much a train wreck for us long-time users/fans.

 

[StoneJack]

I had originally Yahoo mail based AppleID, so I bought a few apps and movies with that ID.
Later I opened an Apple original ID with @me.com (which translated to iCloud seamlessly).
I decided to use Apple original ID for everything and logged out of Yahoo based AppleID, I don't use it anymore.
However, old apps purchased with that ID, requite login to be updated.

 

[hipnetic]

Anyone have any thoughts regarding my Apple Card (credit card) situation? Should I close it and re-apply, or try to work with what I've got?

 

[iStorm]

Anyone have any thoughts regarding my Apple Card (credit card) situation? Should I close it and re-apply, or try to work with what I've got?

If you care about your credit score, you may want to keep that aspect in mind as well...since closing and re-applying could affect it.

 

[hipnetic]

If you care about your credit score, you may want to keep that aspect in mind as well...since closing and re-applying could affect it.

Right, I probably should have mentioned that as a con. I am aware of that, but also not particularly concerned about it. Though I do wonder if closing/re-applying could result in my new application getting approved for a lower credit limit. 🤷‍♂️

 

[WebHead]

Anyone have any thoughts regarding my Apple Card (credit card) situation? Should I close it and re-apply, or try to work with what I've got?

My two cents: I've quite happily kept my "purchases" account and "contacts/emails/messages" account separate over the years. Luckily Apple lets you use both on the same device.

 

[hipnetic]

Just thought I'd post back about my Apple Card issue. I never got around to cancelling (or attempting to add my other account as a user of the card) until today when I was thinking about buying something from the Apple website. So I figured I'd try the workaround I had read about and temporarily log out of my @me.com account on my iPhone and then log into my @hotmail.com (iTunes / Apple Card) account.

Right off the bat I was running into issues where the phone wanted me to verify some MacBook login password of mine where the MacBook didn't even sound familiar (I think it was an old MacBook I no longer have), so it told me the password was wrong.

I think I eventually gave up with that phone and decided to take an unused older iPhone of mine and log into the @hotmail.com account from there. That wasn't problem-free, either, but I eventually got it working. I then went to share my card, but it tells me that I have to first be part of Family Sharing. That was surprising to me, because I thought this account was already part of my Family Sharing (since I'm able to watch my @hotmail.com purchased iTunes movies, etc., from the other accounts). But apparently not. So, OK, I then have to invite myself (my other account) to be part of the family. Eventually I get that working, too. But then I go to share the credit card and it gives me two options: Co-Owner and Shared User (or whatever the 2nd one was labeled as). The first one mentioned being able to make payments, and I thought that's what I was supposed to be choosing. But when I went down that path it asked me how much my annual income was, and then it seemed clear that it was going to do some sort of formal application with Goldman Sachs with this other ID (which was the same person - me), and I suspected that was going to cause some fraud craziness at GS, so I backed out of that.

After wasting close to an hour on trying to get it working, I gave up and decided to cancel the card. One bit of online info suggested I should go into the Wallet app, choose the card, then the 3 dots, then start up a Messages chat with them, but apparently that wasn't going to work from my old iPhone since it had no SIM card in it and it complained that my iCloud and Messages accounts didn't match, and I wasn't sure how to work around that.

So then I found the GS phone # and called them up and cancelled it. They advised me to wait 30 days before re-applying, so I guess I won't be using an Apple Card for today's purchase (if I decide to purchase at all now).