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Merge apple id's, me.com and itunes account?

Hi

I got about 7 or 8 different accounts with apple i.e.
Apple id
itunes account
mobile me
.mac

Is there anyway of merging these into one? or at least some of them?

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2), imac 24"

Posted on Jan 13, 2010 8:15 AM

Reply
509 replies

Dec 27, 2011 8:56 AM in response to akirasixty9

This is incredibly frustrating. Why can't Apple do anything? Those of us most affected are their most loyal customers. My AppleID is my_first_name@mac.com. I'm an early adopter. My original ID is an old email address from before mac.com. At the time I started withg mac.com, I suppose I could have switched, but then I would have lost a few songs. I assumed that they'd let us combine them later. As the years went on, it became harder and harder to switch, because I'll lose everything.


No, I'm not interested in "work arounds," I want a definitive, SIMPLE fix.

Dec 28, 2011 1:45 PM in response to jonathantpage

I'm just adding my situation to those that already exist in hopes that Apple will eventual do something about it. I also started iTunes with my gmail account. I have lots of music and apps purchased under this account. I then paid for a mobileMe account a few years ago. I'm happy it's now free and with iCloud, I would love to just use that as everything I do with Apple but I can't. This discourages me from wanting to use iCloud as I start to see that Google offers a lot of the same things without the hassle. At this point I only use iTunes and iPhoto to manage content so I can add it to my iDevices. Thank you Apple for encouraging me to not use the full services for your products.

Jan 5, 2012 5:48 PM in response to akirasixty9

I'd add 'manage IDs' to the obvious merging request. I could do with separate IDs/accounts if only I new what the **** is authorized for which device. I can't agree more with the person who mentionned how debilating it is that the more loyal the customer (more iphones, macs, laptops, ipads,..) the more you're penalized. I got (literaly) robbed several apps on an iphone and different ones on an ipad this week because I synched them to a new laptop and apparently different ids (with the same email???).


Apple you owe me and a lot of people here some money, a lot of time and headaches.


I want it back with interests. An iPad for my two year old would do. I'll make sure do create him his very own ID.

Jan 6, 2012 11:10 PM in response to philippe messier

I'm in the same boat as the other folks here. The ID I'm using now is the ID I got back when the iTunes Music Store first launched; I was buying music online pretty much immediately, using a Yahoo address that was, at the time, my primary e-mail address. Meanwhile, I have a second Apple ID that I got when I signed up for .Mac. That ID is My.Full.Name@mac.com. I held onto that through the MobileMe thing and have now converted it into my iCloud ID. I've been using it for a good four or five years now, it's the e-mail address pretty much everyone has for me, and it's tied to all of my bank accounts and so on. It's also the account that syncs to my address book, my calendars, et cetera, et cetera.


The problem, of course, is that the one thing my iCloud ID won't sync to is the one thing I was most excited about when iCloud rolled out- my iTunes purchases. I've bought a heck of a lot of stuff on the iTunes Music Store, but it's all been done on that old Apple ID because that was what was available when iTunes first started selling music. So now, based on this thread, my options amount to swapping out iCloud IDs on my phone depending on what I'm doing (a pain in the neck) or having to suck it up and deal with the fact that I'm rendered unable to use Match because I was silly enough to jump on board the iTunes bandwagon long before .Mac (let alone iCloud) was a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye.


There are various other services I've used where it has been possible to merge accounts, purchases, et cetera. It seems really weird to me that Apple cannot/will not facilitate this option here, in a situation where it's arguably the most necessary. Why make this so needlessly complicated? And it's clear from this thread that I'm not the only one in this situation. If we have twenty-plus pages of people frustrated enough to post, how many people are out there that would be happy to shell out the money for Match but won't because they can't synch it to their iPhone or iPad (which is the whole point)? Probably a lot. As it is, I'll likely end up paying for something like Spotify instead.

Jan 8, 2012 11:29 PM in response to akirasixty9

BUMP. As an international company servicing a global community, Apple should recognise that this something that needs to be fixed. I am sure I am not the only person that has moved around the world and has had to create multiple id's because I have content downloaded in one country, and since require new content which is not avaialble on the original server.


With all the iCloud integration "blah blah blah" this is a serious hitch that needs fixing.


"annoyed log-out log-in appleid user"

Jan 11, 2012 8:46 PM in response to akirasixty9

I am an IT consultant with many Mac-based customers who are very frustrated by this same problem. And now it is my headache to have to deal with all of them, none of whom understand why they may have more than one Apple ID or the difference between them.


Most of them had a mobile me account and their .me address was also their Apple ID.


But when they buy a new mac or upgrade to Lion, they are prompted to create an Apple ID, which they do using their current email address - which is usually NOT their mobile me email address! Many of them were walked through this process by Geniuses at the Apple Store -- NONE of whom ever seem to have the brains to ask if they already have a mobile me account. So they end up not only with multiple Apple IDs, but also converting their mobile me account to an icloud account before they have updated all their computers to Lion and then they end up with a nightmare situation trying to keep all devices in sync, doubling and tripling up contacts and calendar events, or losing data, and causing massive confusion and stress.


And then they have to pay me to sort it all out. You would think Apple would at least train their store "geniuses" to be more careful navigating the moblile me / icloud transition.

Jan 12, 2012 7:40 AM in response to smithdan

Great contribution to this discussion...whatever issues Apple may have with getting this problem resolved (which I still can't fathom what they would be), your experience here indicates that Apple did not and apparently still does not "get it" in terms of how bad this is for the customer experience, which is supposedly one of Apple's greatest advantages over other companies - at least historically. What does this portend for the future path of Apple without Steve Jobs?

Merge apple id's, me.com and itunes account?

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