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iCloud, iTunes, AppleID, and Couples

Here is how I’ve set up our Apple universe. My wife and I have a constellation of Apple hardware and accounts, and with the release of iOS 5, I was more than a little confused how things might change.

The good news is that if you’ve got all your purchased media under a single account, not much should change. This article is an attempt to document my strategy with multiple AppleID accounts.

We have three “primary” AppleID accounts. Two were associated with MobileMe, along with a third account from before the days .Mac existed.

Over the last few years, we’ve each backed up our key data to MobileMe using our respective personal accounts. The .Mac/AppleID was used in iTunes for purchases, using the five Mac limit for our laptops and desktops.

The initial iOS 5 install and setup screen prompts the user for an AppleID, which it uses to populate all the AppleID fields in the various applications that use it.

This prompt appears the first time an iOS 5 device or Mac with 10.7.2 or later first starts up. However, I skipped this step.

Once iOS 5 was installed in the iPad 1, and after skipping past the initial AppleID setup screen, the AppleID credential for the App Store and iTunes was in place. Home Sharing was still using the same AppleID in both the Music and Video settings. The iPad had access everything just as before. At this point I made sure the iPad was backed up, and the Mac was up to date.

Next I went to iCloud.com on the Mac. It prompted me to convert my AppleID account to iCloud.

Apple does not walk you though the steps of using more than one AppleID. All the screens are worded to imply that there is a single AppleID for each user, but I used my “personal” AppleID, the one which contained my MobileMe data.

After a series of instructions from iCloud, on things like manually backing up the data beforehand and insuring that all the systems were up to date, the data was converted on Apple’s servers to iCloud. Afterwards I was allowed to log in using the Mac’s System Preferences to iCloud, and the account behaved as expected. 

On the iPad, I opened Settings and chose iCloud. Here, again, I entered the AppleID which houses my personal information. It found the iCloud account on the server, and behaved as I expected. Next I added the same AppleID into the Messages app Settings, and associated it with my old MobileMe email address, which was the same as its associated AppleID.

In summary, iOS apps support individual AppleID logins, and do not appear to restrict any services when shared among devices.

The only minor exception to this I’ve encountered thus far is iBooks. iBooks is tied to the AppleID of the store, so page bookmarks, notes, and shelf categories are shared between all the devices.

My wife and I don’t read the same book at the same time, so its never really a problem, but it does illustrate the problems that could be faced by users as Apple continues to refine the iCloud services.

I’m quite happy with iOS 5 thus far, and will update this post as needed going forward. In the meantime, think about consolidating all your media under one AppleID, and using another AppleID for your non-iTunes iCloud based services.

Update: According to Macworld, its possible to create at least a somewhat similar setup with only two AppleIDs. One for all music purchases and iCloud sync of personal data for one person, separate AppleID’s for two or more people. There is an implied security issue when a single ID is used by one person to sync and everyone to make purchases.