Will sharing an iTunes account with a friend be bad once iCloud is out?

[iRebecca27]

My friend and I have been sharing an iTunes account for about 6 years. We were in school together and would share purchased music. I'm getting an iPhone in the fall, and going away to college, and with the pictures being sent from the phone to computer and vice versa, will they show up on her computer too?

Would it be better for one of us to get a new iTunes account? Could we still access the benefits of the hundreds of songs we purchased on the shared account?

 

[Bear]

Ignoring the question of does what you're doing violate the iTunes store agreement. (Not enough information in your post to know.)

You can use one ID for the store and a second ID for syncing the other data. I would recommend that you use the original ID only for the iTunes store and you each get new and separate IDs for syncing.

I don't know where certain services (like iTunes Match) will fall, so you will need to see what is actually true when the services go live.

Currently from what I've read, apparently there are 3 different places to enter IDs in the iOS 5 developer preview, so you should be okay for what you want.

 

[iRebecca27]

Thanks for your response! I'm pretty sure it doesn't violate the agreement because you used to be able to have music on up to 5 computers, families share their music w/ each other etc.

 

[NightStorm]

Thanks for your response! I'm pretty sure it doesn't violate the agreement because you used to be able to have music on up to 5 computers, families share their music w/ each other etc.

Wrong.

 

[wehokev]

Similar question. In our household we have multiple Apple products and two users, let’s call us K and J. Here are the products we have with the user in parentheses:

• iPhone (K only)
• iPad (J only)
• iMac (K and J each with own user account)
• Macbook Air (K only)

User K uses MobileMe to keep calendars and contacts in synch “over the air” across iPhone, iMac (K’s account only), and Macbook Air. User J uses iTunes synch to synch calendars and contacts “over the cord” across iMac (J’s account only) and iPad.

For the app store we share an Apple ID. This is great because it allows us to share apps, music, etc. The only problem is that keeping our iTunes library files up to date is annoying. For music we periodically use the Add To Library… option off the File menu in iTunes. For everything else, we open iTunes under both user accounts and then use home sharing to synch applications, etc. But this is very buggy, I don’t think iTunes was designed to be running on the same machine in two different user accounts.

MRF User Bear that mentions in an earlier post that there are three places to enter in one’s Apple ID on an iOS device. Presumably one can enter in up to three unique Apple IDs in those three locations. What are the three locations? App Store? Mail/Contacts/Calendar? Photos? Backup? Documents?

I’m hoping that we can put one Apple Id in for the App Store so we can continue to share apps, music, etc. But a different Apple Id in for everything else, so we can have different contacts, calendars, photo streams, and documents.

Thanks for the help!!

 

[d21mike]

MRF User Bear that mentions in an earlier post that there are three places to enter in one’s Apple ID on an iOS device. Presumably one can enter in up to three unique Apple IDs in those three locations. What are the three locations? App Store? Mail/Contacts/Calendar? Photos? Backup? Documents?

I’m hoping that we can put one Apple Id in for the App Store so we can continue to share apps, music, etc. But a different Apple Id in for everything else, so we can have different contacts, calendars, photo streams, and documents.

Thanks for the help!!

In iOS 4.3 and iOS 5 /Settings /Store is where you put your iTunes Apple ID.

In iOS 5 /Settings /iCloud is where you put your iCloud Apple ID

In iOS 5 /Setting /Mail... is where you put your iCloud Apple ID for Mail, Contacts, Calendar etc.

If you have MobileMe you will upgrade it to iCloud here:

http://www.me.com/upgrade

 

[wehokev]

Mike. Thanks for the info.