Multiple Apple IDs in the app store

[flynz4]

Our our house we use a common Apple ID for all store purchases, and individual apple IDs for personal iCloud stuff. Ex:

store@icloud.com (used by everyone for every apple store)
dad@icloud.com
mom@icloud.com
daughter@icloud.com
son@icloud.com

This all works great because we get to share purchases... especially expensive ones such as FCPX. It is useful for the MAS, the iOS App store, Books, Music, etc.

I am getting fed up with all the crap apps clogging up the iOS app store. Things like a 100 tiny little games and utilities, most of us would never want. I do have my devices set to auto download (by choice)... but I am always deleting apps.

My questions:

• Can I create a new App Store account (ex: kids-store@icloud.com) that is only used by the kids... but still allows them to use both store apple ID's (kids-store@icloud.com & store@icloud.com)?
• Does that create any complexities or problems?
• As they switch IDs, do all the existing apps go away?
• Anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

/Jim

 

[pmontanarella]

Our our house we use a common Apple ID for all store purchases, and individual apple IDs for personal iCloud stuff. Ex:

store@icloud.com (used by everyone for every apple store)
dad@icloud.com
mom@icloud.com
daughter@icloud.com
son@icloud.com

This all works great because we get to share purchases... especially expensive ones such as FCPX. It is useful for the MAS, the iOS App store, Books, Music, etc.

I am getting fed up with all the crap apps clogging up the iOS app store. Things like a 100 tiny little games and utilities, most of us would never want. I do have my devices set to auto download (by choice)... but I am always deleting apps.

My questions:

• Can I create a new App Store account (ex: kids-store@icloud.com) that is only used by the kids... but still allows them to use both store apple ID's (kids-store@icloud.com & store@icloud.com)?
• Does that create any complexities or problems?
• As they switch IDs, do all the existing apps go away?
• Anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

/Jim

It can be done but it gets really complicated and you'd lose the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud. Basically you can switch around the accounts but you can "transfer" the account linked to iTunes in the Cloud on any device every 90 days. Basically you wouldn't be able to re-download purchases directly from the device and auto-download would be disabled.

The apps that you have downloaded locally, however, do remain and are not affected if you switch/sign out of the account they were bought/downloaded with.

Hope this helps,
Pietro

Edit: I'd also like to recommend AGAINST sharing the Apple IDs for purchases for example for the kids because when they grow up and they'll want their own iTunes account they will lose all the purchases they've made so far and will have to repurchase everything. Because of this I suggest you just let them each use their own iCloud account for iTunes purchases so as to prevent issues in the future.

 

[flynz4]

I'd also like to recommend AGAINST sharing the Apple IDs for purchases...

Pietro,

Thank you for the reply.

Maybe we will continue to share the "purchase" Apple ID for the Mac App Store, because there are many hundreds of dollars of purchases. All of these machines are owned by me. Why would anyone want to buy 4 copies of FCPX or Aperture for use on their own machines?

OTOH... our iOS App Store have mostly been inexpensive or free apps. Most of the somewhat more expensive apps are generally not used by the kids. So we can switch to our personal iCloud accounts for those purchases. In aggregate, it would not be that expensive to purchase a few copies of some apps.

Thanks again. Not what I wanted to hear... but good advice.

/Jim