Question About Sharing Apps Between My iPhone and My Wife's iPhone

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Question About Sharing Apps Between My iPhone and My Wife's iPhone

Hi, I have a question about downloading apps to my iPhone.

I ordered two iPhone 3g's - one for my wife and one for me, and I've discovered that when I download an app (even free ones) on my iPhone and then later sync it to iTunes, my wife cannot put it on her phone. However if I download it on iTunes on my computer and later sync it to my phone, then my wife is able to sync it to her phone as well. It's no big deal when they are free because she can just go get it if she wants it. I haven't purchased any apps yet, but is there a way to be able to give my wife apps that I purchase on my iPhone? Or do I need to purchase all of my [pay] apps and songs on iTunes on my computer to ensure we both have access? Or do I have it all wrong completely LOL?? This rights management stuff is confusing.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Jimmy

Posted on May 26, 2009 7:30 AM

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Answer 1

DaVBMan

Level 6

9,280 points

May 26, 2009 8:14 AM in response to JaxiPhone

Are you both using the same iTunes login or do each of you have your own accounts?

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Answer 2

JaxiPhone Author

Level 1

0 points

May 26, 2009 10:12 AM in response to DaVBMan

OK I just called my wife and checked, and we have different accounts. She said it made her set up an account when she started using the phone. I think I remember this now. Is there a way that I can put both phones on the same account so we can download and share apps and music regardless of where we are doing it (my phone, her phone, the computer)?

Thanks very much

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Answer 3

AfoUare

Level 1

10 points

Aug 5, 2009 10:51 AM in response to JaxiPhone

I had my iTunes account and phone before I got my wife's hers. When I first started, I synced hers from her account on my computer brought in my libraries and authorized her phone as one of the 5 allowed. She had all purchased apps and music. Over time we each bought music or apps on our seperate accouts. Of course, we told each other about cool apps or music we bought and wanted on our phone. When I went to sync iTunes was going to delete all music and apps and sync with the library I was logged into. Didn't want that, only work around I have found is to copy new music or new apps from one library to the other. Updating on the phone is also difficult because you can't switch between accounts so updates have to be done at the computer for apps bought under different accounts. I am sure there is a better way to do this and ask for an insight anyone would have. I hope it works out.

Message was edited by: AfoUare for typos

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Answer 4

Aug 5, 2009 11:00 AM in response to AfoUare

Not sure it this will help. But my fiancee' uses my original iphone as a itouch and I have the 3G. We have two computers his and hers, so what I do is when I buy something on my 3G or download an app to my computer, I then plug my 3G into his computer and right click on the iphone and click transfer purchases and it copies what I have to his computer and that way he has the same app, songs, videos that I do and he can choose to sync them or not. Hope this helps

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Answer 5

Aug 5, 2009 3:09 PM in response to JaxiPhone

I don't know if this is still the case but in my experience with previous versions of iPhone OS, prolly 2.0-2.2 me and my girlfriend were able to share apps as long as we sync'd our phones on the same computer under the same user account. It would require that we sometimes type in our account passwords for each iTunes account we held but sharing the Apps worked just fine in this situation.

My girlfriend has since gotten her own iMac so no longer snyc's on mine so can't say if this has been removed in recent versions of iTunes or iPhone OS.

If iTunes only allows you to share Apps that were downloaded by iTunes just delete the app and re-download it via iTunes instead of sync'ing it from your phone.

One side effect I noticed was you will not be able to Update an app unless you have the other account password. If you know both passwords tho you should be golden.

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