Q: AirDrop showing the wrong name and picture with iOS 7

So it does all seem to be tied into contacts. It can be linked to any part of the contact that is being shown when you go into airdrop. Easiest way to find out is to look at the picture it's using, if it has one. In my case it was showing my picture on both phones but had different names on each one. I saw my picture and my name. My wife saw my Picture and her name.

1. Make sure that contact syncing is turned off. (I had to turn this off for another problem we'd had prior to IOS7, don't remember the problem but could see it causing this issue as well).

2. Edit the information of the contact that is being linked. In my case I had to remove the nickname associated with my contact on both phones. Other people I see in reading this thread had to change different parts of the contact that was affected such as email or relationship information, so probably means it could be any part of the contact affecting it.

It's so strange, I removed nickname from my wife's contact but funds work. I now airdrop to anyone and it shows the correct contact based on the iphone names.  However if I now use my contacts it fails. Really strange on what it's doing.

Log in to your Apple ID. Manage it and see if you have an alternate email address. If so delete it. I did that and it fixed everything.

As a few others have stated, this glitch could just go away if Apple simply utilized AirDrop to use the device's name.  Apple IDs or iCloud accounts don't make sense for the purpose of sending a picture, we just simply want to send pictures to another device that is near us.  Considering this feature was supposed to be better than NFC in Android devices, it is a fail.

Im having the same problem.  My wife and I share an Apple ID on our phones, but clearly have different contact information.  I have checked a few things in Contacts, but our email addresses and phone numbers are different.

I think I'll still be texting photos out to people until this can made simpler.

I had this same problem. I deleted all the phone numbers and email addresses associated with iMessage / FaceTime. (I know we're discussing AirDrop but they seem to be tied together.) in iMessage, I then added back in my wife's phone number for her iPhone and then added back my phone number for my iPhone. A message popped up on my iPhone and hers asking to associate the phone numbers on each phone for iMessage. I didn't accept her phone number on my iPhone and I didn't accept my phone on her iPhone. I did accept my phone number on my iPhone and her phone number on her iPhone. I did the same for each of our iPads. And it now works perfectly. I did not add any of our emails to iMessage or FaceTime.

Okay, I've read through these posts and one thing keeps hitting me.  Everyone says it pulls from your Apple ID.  Fine, understand, however, that can't be true.  We have three people on our Apple ID, my wife myself, and our daughter.  Now, if it's pulling from Apple ID they should all be the same, but mine shows my daughters name and my wife's shows her email address. My daughters name is not associated with our Apple ID in any way.  Using the ID, the phone world not be able to fine her name. Sorry to use logic, but we're barking up the wrong tree here.

I believe it has something to do with contacts, but haven't figured it out yet. By the way, we need the same Apple ID otherwise home share disappears and I don't know about you guys but when I DL a 4GB movie, I don't think we need to do that three times.

But the way when I went from the 4s to the 5s, Siri, forgot who I was and almost all of the passwords (email, wifi, etc) were lost and needed to be reentered, don't remember that happening last time. So I'm guessing they're all related.  Pretty sure that's why internally Apple is already working on 7.0.3

Ok I figured out this.  Well my problem.  (I think there could be a couple different issues here)

Everyone should have a different AppleID.  This has nothing to do with iTunes or App store becuase you can sign there here with the head of house hold account.

So my wife had her own AppleID.  You can get to this at www.icloud.com.  Sign in there.  I logged in as her and it still had her maiden name.  I changed this to her married name and that corrected the problem!

Now she still uses my AppleID on the iTunes store which let her get apps I buy.

But she has her own iCloud AppleID.

This was the same issue with my parents.  My mom had her own AppleID but it had all my dads information under it.  Again I logged on to www.icloud.com and logged on as her.  I went to her settings and corrected her information.

She still has my Dads AppleID for iTunes to download her stuff, but iCloud is under her AppleID

DeepPurple23, I'm not claiming AirDrop pulls from Apple ID. I really don't care where it gets its info. Each persons' iDevices need unique identifiers i.e.: Dad's iPhone and iPad should share the same telephone number/email address, and Mom's iPhone and iPad must share the same telephone number and email address but these must be different from Dad's, and so on with each person who shares the same Apple ID and iCloud account.

Don't just uncheck these numbers in iMessage and FaceTime, delete them entirely.

Then disable iMessage and FaceTime.

Reactivate iMessage one family member at a time. in iMessage, use your phone number for your iPhone.Repeat for your iPad if applicable.

Don't accept this number on any other members' iDevices, as each iPhone/iPad under the same Apple ID will receive a pop up message asking you to associate your phone number on their iPhone/iPad.

Repeat with each other iPhone/iPad that shares your Apple ID, but do this one person at a time.

Again, each person's iDevices must share the same phone number and/or email address for their respective iPhone and iPad, but these cannot be used by any other person. You have three people under one account. Each should have unique email addresses and/or phone numbers in iMessage. I mistakenly accepted my wife's email address on my iPhone during setup, and experienced this problem. I then deleted phone numbers and email address from all our iPhones and iPads from within iMessage. I then added back in as noted above and all is now good.

You do not need seperate Apple ID's or iCloud accounts. Each person in a single account must have their own unique email addresses and phone numbers. Unchecking them in iMessage will not fix this mess. You must delete them from iMessage and FaceTime then re-populate them back into iMessage/FaceTime. Setting up different Apple ID's will also work but then you cannot share purchased items and shared application data.

larryr1 wrote:

 

Setting up different Apple ID's will also work but then you cannot share purchased items and shared application data.

Sharing purchases has never been a problem, even with different primary iCloud accounts.  Scroll to the bottom of a "Store" app (iTunes Store, iBooks, App Store) and sign in with the family Apple ID.  Or you can simply sign in with the family Apple ID in Settings/(iTunes and App Store).  This is also documented here, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4895 under the section "Using one Apple ID for iCloud and a different Apple ID for Store Purchases".

That is wonderful, but it doesn't solve the problem many are experiencing in this thread. My problem and the problem of many of the folks who are posting here is that their iPhone's and/or iPad's were associated with an phone number and/or email address from someone else who shares their Apple ID. My post explains how to fix that problem. And, as mentioned above, several of us have already shared a common Apple ID without issue. My post explains how they can continue sharing that Apple ID. Your suggestion and link accomplish that by using a different method, but it does not explain how they can un-associate their devices from each others' phone numbers/email addresses to fix the current problem.

Hi larryr1,

My wife and I have been sharing the same Apple ID since iCloud was launched.  I too want to resolve the AirDrop problem without giving up our shared Apple ID.

I have been reading this thread backwards and just got to your post which explains resetting iMessage and FaceTime. This is what I have under Settings/Messages/(Send and Receive) on my phone.

Apple ID: <shared Apple ID>

YOU CAN BE REACHED BY IMESSAGE AT

<check mark> <my phone number>

<check mark> <my email address, (shared Apple ID)>

<not checked> <icloud.com email address>

<not checked> <me.com email address>

How do I delete the phone number and email addresses?  I can tap on the blue circled "i" against the email addresses and tap "Remove This Email".  But, the phone number is greyed out and I can't seem to do anything with it.

Thanks!

PS: I just found these instructions "iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion: Link your phone number and Apple ID for use with FaceTime and iMessage" here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 . There is a section titled "How to unlink a phone number".

Sigjuice, tap on the blue circle with the i in the center.

Select Remove this email address.

Continue to remove all email addresses.

If your phone number is greyed out, then that is likely your phone number on the device you're using. Nothing else can be done with this phone number.

Ensure all other phone numbers listed that have a blue circle with an i in the center are removed. If they cannot be removed, then uncheck them. Do the same in FaceTime.

Then turn off iMessage and FaceTime. (If you don't use iMessage or FaceTime leave them off.) If you use them now is the time to reactivate them by following my instructions above.

It's not just an Airdrop problem.  My wife and I share the same icloud account for contacts and calendars (and btw, also applicable if you share an app like Budget that uses a common icloud acct). She also has her own icloud acct for iMessage and FaceTime.  Anyway, whenever we select the appropriate "Me" contact under contact settings, it changes the other spouses "Me" setting to the same person (so we're both always set to the same person).  If you switch the other phone it switches the other and on and on. Never a problem in ios 6.

With iOS 6, my wife and I did encounter the problem where "My Info" under "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" and "Siri" wouldn't stick and kept changing the way you describe.  I worked around that by removing both our contacts from iCloud.  I then transfered those two contacts to both our phones using iTunes. The end result was that each phone had two categories under contacts, "iCloud" and "From My Mac" (with just two contacts). Then setting "My Info" to a "From My Mac" contact made it all work.  The latest iTunes says something to the effect of "you are using iCloud contacts, so no Mac contacts for you".  With iOS 7, setting "My Info" to a contact from a secondary iCloud account works instead.

About the AirDrop problem,

I turned off iMessage and and FaceTime on all our iOS devices and computers.  I have deleted my contact from everwhere possible. AirDrop from my wife's phone still has my name on it, instead of hers.

I am biting the bullet and switching my wife's phone and computer to her own iCloud account.  Common purchases are easy.  Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Notes are easily shared by adding each other's iCloud account as a secondary account under "Mail, Contacts, Calendars".  I don't like the loss of a single Photo Stream.  Having our own Passbook and Documents/Data is probably alright.  I am not too excited about giving up common iCloud Safari tabs, but finally having our own separately organized bookmarks will be nice.  We each get our own 5GB.

Apple's philosophy appears to be "a separate iCloud account for every person".  I don't think sharing an iCloud account will get any easier with upcoming features like iCloud Keychain, which is supposed to hold credit cards and passwords.

The ability to easily share stuff amongst family members is important to many of us.  I can only hope that Apple recognizes this and makes things simple in the future.