Consolidate my family's Apple device accounts.

June 7, 2010 5:54 PM

I have two kids. Each has an ipod touch. Planning on adding two more to the household (mom and dad). Problem: I created an itunes store ID for each kid. Looking backward, wouldn't it have been smarter to create ONE Apple ID for the family, so I can see what is being purchased? I had a recent breach in my credit card and had several unauthorized purchases from Itunes...having one account might have led me to see this fraud a little sooner. (apart from checking my credit card statement daily) What do you multi-iphone-Touch families do? one account? If the devices all get registered to one account, can one transfer a paid app from one device to another? Will apps already purchased be lost if I consolidate the devices under a different username? Any family Apple device strategies appreciated.
posted by teg4rvn to computers & internet (4 answers total)

You can use Home Sharing in iTunes to share music, movies and apps between multiple authorized computers (I think it was five the last time I checked). It's fairly fast, and you can connect remotely, so it's a good solution for families. You might want to look into it - there are several tutorials available if you do a Google search. I've put my sister's purchased applications on my iPod Touch through Home Sharing and it's been awesome to share our purchased content with each other this way.
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 6:14 PM on June 7, 2010

Alternately, my husband and I use one apple ID for iPhone purchases. No problem, although I don't know how it would scale.
posted by leahwrenn at 7:04 PM on June 7, 2010

My husband and I use one iTunes account and have had no problems sharing across accounts. He has his own Apple ID for use on the forums, but my account is the one that does all the app purchases for our phones and music purchases.
posted by immlass at 7:08 PM on June 7, 2010

Just so you know, only five computers can be "authorized" for one iTunes account. That's a big issue for DRM'd content like video but music isn't DRM'd anymore. That doesn't mean only five devcies, just five computers. iPods and the like aren't computers for this and I don't know if there is a device limit.
posted by chairface at 12:57 PM on June 8, 2010