Q: Is there no way to do Family Sharing without unified billing?

No.

It is set up that way to help prevent people from just adding their friends and sharing apps. Most other benifits you can do now, share photos, share calander, etc. Family share just makes it easier to do it all at once for....  your family, who you trust to make good purchases on your CC.

I'd like this as well - I'd like to be able to share apps/music/etc. with my brother and my parents, but we're all adults and I certainly don't want to pay for all of their purchases!

(nor should they want to pay for all of mine!).

And while there are ways of sharing calendars and photos in other ways, none of them appear to be as seamless or integrated as the options that are available through the family share feature.

Actually if I understood family sharing correctly, while it does require organizer to put up the credit card, every account in plan can have their own cards that will be charged first if they are on the account. For minors it can be itunes gift cards and that balance will be used first. Problem is you have to trust those people to pay their balances - once one family plan member defaults your card will get charged.

I agree with you.  I use my devices primarily for business, while my wife uses hers recreationally and as a student, and the kids are entertainment only users.  I would much rather be able to track my app store business expenses for deductables, rather than parsing through an entire family purchase history to figure out which ones were mine come tax season.  I almost never play games, and I certainly don't go in for in-app purchases for the ones I do occasionally play.  My wife and kids, however, are another matter.  Why in **** would I want all that tacked onto a business account just so my wife can more easily see my calendar, photos, and the like.  I get limiting purchases to a few people, but my own data?  That's just nuts!

stuartfromwestland wrote:

 

I agree with you.  I use my devices primarily for business, while my wife uses hers recreationally and as a student, and the kids are entertainment only users.  I would much rather be able to track my app store business expenses for deductables, rather than parsing through an entire family purchase history to figure out which ones were mine come tax season.  I almost never play games, and I certainly don't go in for in-app purchases for the ones I do occasionally play.  My wife and kids, however, are another matter.  Why in **** would I want all that tacked onto a business account just so my wife can more easily see my calendar, photos, and the like.  I get limiting purchases to a few people, but my own data?  That's just nuts!

I guess that is why they called it family sharing instead of business and family sharing...

Wow, that's helpful, because I can't run a business AND be a parent and husband, right?  All I'm saying is an option to toggle what you share with the family planning, so photos, calendars, notes, and even purchased content is shared but the two adult members have the option of separate billing wouldn't kill anyone.  You're still both claiming one another by Apple ID, so where's the problem?

Making purchases

After you set up your family, any time a family member initiates a new purchase it will be billed directly to your account unless that family member has gift or store credit. First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer. As the family organizer, any receipts generated by the transaction will be sent to you. Learn more about how iTunes Store purchases are billed.

Family purchases and payments

All that mentions is having Apple store credit. Nothing about having separate credit cards, or any other type of separate billing.