Help our iPad live with our iPhones

March 22, 2012 6:26 AM

Loving our new iPad 3, but it's adopted my iPhone's ID and hijacked my wife's along with it - I need some help getting two devices back to normal.

My wife and I each have an iPhone 4 - My wife syncs her phone to our home MacBook, I sync mine to my work MacBook Pro, but we share one iTunes account (in my name) between the 4 devices.

Enter our new iPad 3 (wifi only model) - When it came we activated with our iTunes account, but had not plugged it into either laptop. As we were playing around, my wife texted my phone (via number, as she hadn't imported any contacts) from the iPad. It came through as having my name (which didn't necessarily surprise me as the iTunes account is in that name already) but when I replied it showed up on the iPad AND her phone. Now, her texts from her phone are showing up with my name, and any response is showing up on both her phone and the iPad. Texts from my phone are still in my name as they should be, but it's been very confusing having 3 devices all looking like my phone.

I then synced both her phone and the iPad - the MacBook is recognizing each device with its proper name, but her texts are still coming through both devices as having my name - Any ideas on how can I untether the iPad from our phones, and get my wife's phone back to showing up as my wife's? Thanks!

posted by jalexei to computers & internet (11 answers total)

Disable Messages in the settings options on the iphone. If you want some other account on there, set up your ipad with a different icloud/apple account.
posted by empath at 6:41 AM on March 22, 2012

(sorry, disable it on the iPad, rather).
posted by empath at 6:41 AM on March 22, 2012

Thanks empath - I'll try that when I get home - Was hoping to keep the one overall account for simplicity, but that may be a luxury that's getting a bit clunky. That said, I'm concerned that won't necessarily turn my wife's phone back to its previous identity, which is the real head-scratcher here - Fingers crossed.
posted by jalexei at 8:47 AM on March 22, 2012

Oh, I didn't notice it was happening on her phone, also.

Are you guys all sharing the same itunes account on all devices?
posted by empath at 8:50 AM on March 22, 2012

Yeah, if you're sharing accounts, iMessage is a mess.
posted by empath at 8:50 AM on March 22, 2012

Just to clarify, though, if you disable iMessage) it'll clear up the problem on all the devices, and you'll still be able to text between them, you just won't get the free text messages.
posted by empath at 8:59 AM on March 22, 2012

OK, so the key is "iMessage is a mess" with multiple devices on one account - We'd been successfully using it between our phones up until now; I guess the addition of a third device scrambled everything - We'd like to keep using iMessage, so it looks like biting the bullet and associating the iPad with a different account will be the way to go - thanks again!
posted by jalexei at 10:05 AM on March 22, 2012

Also keep in mind you can use a different Apple ID for the Store and for iCloud. That way you can share apps and music between accounts, but still have things like messages, calendars and contacts independent to each device.
posted by FreezBoy at 10:34 AM on March 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

FreezBoy's suggestion is the way to go: keep separate iCloud accounts for your devices and computers but use the same Apple ID across your iTunes so you don't have to re-buy the same apps and music...
posted by stratastar at 10:43 AM on March 22, 2012

Yep, FreezeBoy hit it on the nose. iMessage is tied to iCloud accounts, which are separate from iTunes accounts, which govern purchases. You can separate the two. Here are instructions on changing the iCloud account a device uses, and how to set the two up.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 11:14 AM on March 22, 2012

Yup. You definitely want 3 accounts:
Main iTunes account (that you share so you can share purchased apps)
Your iCloud
Her iCloud
It's working well in this multi-iDevice household.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 8:33 PM on March 22, 2012