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

In. I have a Gmail iTunes ID and now a @me.com account for iCloud. I would MUCH rather have one ID for all things Apple. Multi authorizations is not a solution, it is a band-aid at best.

Apple, please do what you do best...take a complex problem and give us a simple solution.

I have a ton of music on my first iTunes acct that I want to easily access on my second which I use for my iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. When i bought my iPad 2 in March 2011, the Apple Store genius said Apple was working on being able to I merge accounts and should be coming soon. Guess he didn't know what he was talking about.

I wonder if Apple is doing this on purpose because of the extra sales of the same downloads on multiple accounts. I hope not because if that ever came out Apple would extremely greedy.

Come on Apple do the right thing. You are supposed to be the company that defines simple and user friendly products.

I have been commenting in this thread for months now...and am very disappointed in the lack of a resolution and the apparent need of Apple to hold us hostage to their needless need to control our connections.. At first used seperate id's on my ipad and iphone..hoping to bridge the gap.  ..then there was wireless syncing which gave me more time. 

Then I LOST THE HARD DRIVE ON MY LAPTOP which is home to my main itunes account. UGH..

I recoverd the majority of my music from my backup  (but not my playlists - which is an entirely different and still ridiculous APPLE issue) but I have not cable synced my ipad nor iphone since November....due to the hours of APP, LOGIN, and PLAYLIST reformatting I am facing if I do. As a forner "religiously once a week syncer"  I have now been liberated...BUT.. I will probably be in trouble when the next major software update comes out..

So with all the compiling issues...I am now going ROGUE and tearfully leaving the APPLE nest..

I have pulled ALL my files off of MobileMe and moved them into EVERNOTE...which frankly I like better. 

AND I recently tried SPOTIFY... which upon initial inspection may be able to replace my ipad and iphone music needs. My point is that I am diversifying my options (exactly what APPLE doesn't want us to do) but I'm really glad to NOT have all my eggs in one APPLE as they say...

Even more ironically, I am telling them so on their own blog... GEEZ how loud do we have to scream..

hope to be solved soon ...

Yes its true

when i was trying to reset my apple id.

i didnt see the place to write apple id

it only shows primary email id

so my primary email is my apple id?

iCloud, mobileme, find my iphone all are complicated

is your apple database currupt?

when i enter my email id in mobile me as my apple id

it says this is not valid apple id

for that i went on apple.com to reset my apple id

but i found only manage info > primary email and password reset only, i couldn't found anything that 'THIS IS YOUR APPLE ID" means my appleid is my email but mobile me and find my iphone doesn't take your email as your apple id. Apple id is only for USA Citizen?

its better to use Nokia.

I am amazed this thread is still going.

I am really confused by everyone's problems as it just worked for me from day one, @me.com used for mail/calendar etc as it always was, and then my iTunes account used for Store Purchases (whether AppStore iTunes etc) which syncs to all my devices.

One other benefit of this is that as Apple have allowed this sharing of content (multi devices), I could theoretically put my store account details on my wifes iPhone4 and her iTunes Account on iMac, that way she would have access to all music i buy on my account and all apps i buy. Also if I purchase iTunes Match it will synchronise my music rips across all devices (ie my iphone4s, her iphone, my MBP, our iMac and a future iPad).....Sweet!

You do not have to swap Apple IDs.

Simply now:

On iphone/ipad

1. Go to Settings

2. Go to iCloud

3. Type in your mac.com address and password

4. Select the services you want to use (Mail, contacts, Cals etc)

5. Return to Settings main screen

6. Scroll down to Store

7. Enter Store

8. Tell it what purchases you want to automatically download (Music, Apps, Books)

9. Enter your Original iTunes Store ID (i think you said a yahoo address)

All done.

On Mac OSX

1. Go to Preferences

2. Go to iCloud

3. Enter your mac.com and password (assuming you've upgraded it to icloud)

4. Select services you want to use (MAil, contacts, calendars etc)

5. Exit Preferences

6. Go to iTunes

7. From menu bar at top go to Store, and if not signed in, do so and use your Original iTunes Store ID (all purchases will sync)

If you want to buy iTunes Match do it now using your Original iTunes ID

Easy enough, unless your .mac/.me email address was used for your iTunes account. Then you can't use it as your iCloud ID because it will say it's already in use. So now, instead of having my iTunes emails (invoices, updates, info) come to my .me address, it has to go to another email address. If not, I'd have to set up a new iCloud ID, which at this point, may be the best solution.

Again, I just think Apple should have this named differently if it's going to be different (ie - Apple ID and iTunes ID). Otherwise, allow us to consolidate all these ID's into a single entity.

pairof9s wrote:

 

If not, I'd have to set up a new iCloud ID, which at this point, may be the best solution.

 

I tried doing this, I set up iCloud for my non-@me.com Apple ID, I chose a new @me.com email address for that ID, I even set the mail for that to forward to my prefered @me.com address.  Oooh, this was all going quite well.

I then went to appleid.apple.com, and went to change my new @me.com address to be the primary email address for my old Apple ID, finally I would be able to ditch my old email address....

"You cannot create an Apple ID using a MobileMe account. If this is your email address, it is also your Apple ID."

W ... T ... F ... ? ... !

OK, so if you set up a new @me.com address for an old Apple ID, then it will add it as a secondary email address for your account, but you can't change it to be the primary email address for the account because you get the above error.  I have reported this to Apple, as this is surely just a bug, a verification left over from pre-iCloud, which is no longer relevant, but they've not done anything about it still. 

Absolutely ridiculous, I have to hold onto my old email address just for Apple, when all I want to do is switch to their service.  It means I can get all my emails to my @me.com address, except ones from iTunes and other Apple Services.  Aaaghghghhhhh!!!

If you look through the details in this long and ongoing thread (which by itself should suggest this whole thing is poorly designed by Apple), it turns out that there are a number of reasons why your simple example and setup here doesn't always work or apply to many people. 

Besides, it's not hard to come up with reasons why a person would want to have a single, consolidated account with which to interact with Apple and its products.  Even a track record of interaction with Apple support or communities, etc.  Since logins are for a particular Apple ID, this opens all kinds of avenues for confusion for customers.  And what about future applications in which there is more interaction possible between, say, my iTunes library and iCloud related apps?  Without a single, unified account, these become complex at best, with different logins depending on the area or task involved. 

All completely ridiculuous, IMO.  All we need is a straightforward tool that allows for consolidation of accounts that can clearly be shown to be owned by a particular individual. 

Sorry, but you're wrong.

If you had a mac/me address you had 1 apple ID. If you used the same ID to create iTunes account (which it seems you did as you say that is your iTunes Account ID, you still only have 1 Apple ID.

So this discussion doesn't apply to you.

Sounds like you have not upgraded your mac/me to iCloud, as you don't need to create a new ID, which it seems you are trying to do.

I know this works as my wife has one Apple ID, her iCloud and iTunes are both working using her old MobileMe address.

I too started coming to this thread because I feared my user experience would be impaired by the change to iCloud especially when they started talking about iTunes Matching through iCloud.

The workaround isn't even a workaround. It just continues to work as it did before.

I think in the main people have tried to over complicate it in their operations. From day one it has given me no issues having two ids, as the two accounts do totally different things.

The only problems will arrive when someone has purchased content (from itunes or AppStore) using two IDs, although I believe there is a way to get round this, most simply ripping content to a CD (if music) and then re ripping under your main account).

For Apps there is another solution which involves authorising the computer then switching IDs and assigning the content to the chosen ID.

Because your old iTunes account is still your old iTunes account and you can't have and don't need to have them on one ID.

It's a shame Apple removed the option to have a username rather than an email address as I changed mine way back when from an unused email address to a user name. And then assigned the email notifications to go to my me.com addy.

You may not see it this way, but from where I sit you just sorta proved my point.  Perhaps it "continues to work as it did before" - however (1) it was a problem before and remains so, (2) if people tend to "overcomplicate it in their operations, I say MAKE IT EASIER/SIMPLER FOR THEM, don't try to micromanage how they do and don't have things set up and how they like to use their system, apps, etc., and (3) you mention a couple of nice workarounds, but in my experience if people are having to do workarounds, it's because the system is not well engineered (and we should expect elegant engineering from Apple, should we not?).

All this, and yet the potential solution can be as simple as a tool that allows a single, user-chosen Apple ID and password to access that user's total content and functionality purchased from or offered by Apple. 

I have standardised my Apple ID and password. My iPhone knows the new information, iTunes knows the new information. Apple ID knows the new information. App Store knows the new information. My desktop is running Lion 10.7.3. My iPhone is a 3G.

Every time I sync my iPhone iTunes asks me to authorise my iPhone using an old ID email address. I enter the current information and press Authorise. It tells me I'm already authorised. Then it asks me to authorise it again and again and again and again.

Please help me fix this - right now - I'm wondering how secure Apple ID really is - It is not updating my information somewhere. My credit card details are in the system on my new ID - accessible in my iPhone, iTunes and elsewhere - could someone access my information using the old ID?

How can the new ID and Password be everywhere and yet an old ID still cause problems? Maybe I should reset my iPhone.