Automatic downloads, 2 iTunes accounts

Hi, I also have a German and American account, for many reasons. I hope Apple re-thinks this quickly, as I know many people in my same situation. I am American but live in Germany because I am part of the US Forces still here. I am also married to a German. We love our iPhone and iPad, but can only afford 1 of each and share their use! So you can probably understand why we have the two accounts, hope Apple can also, and not think just about the $$! There are many Apps that I use that are only available in one store or the other and not both. Example, here, our cell provider is A German firm, naturally, they provide many Apps with services for free or at reduced fees, navigation for one example. But, of course, none of these are in the American Store! So, what Apple is trying to tell all those Americans who work for the Armed Forces or serve their Country all over the world is, if you want to use your US account and use local country Apps and services from an account where you are serving you MUST buy a 2nd device for that account or wait 90 days every time you need to access the other account?! Come on Apple, I know they have legal copyright issues to deal with and control, but hey, Steve, we live in a Global World now, of all companies, I would think that Apple would be the first to shed some of the regional limitations and think Global for their customers!

Just an FYI - iTunes 10.3.1 does not fix this problem.

Problem is, just transferring items from the second account to one account still leaves lots of unresolved questions! For example, in our American account we have two apps, The Daily, (with Abo), and USA Today.

When either of these have an update to the app, we must log into our American account to get the update. Neither app is in the German App Store, where we have purchased our Navigation app from our German Telekom company, which has almost weekly updates and we must be logged into our German account to update, and by the way, not available in the American App Store, so, if they allow us to transfer the German items from the German account to the American account, will we still be able to get our updates for our German purchases?!?

Just the first of many things that I'm not sure the Apple folks have looked at or considered. Only solution with the current status, would be for us to have one iPhone with the American purchases and another iPhone for the German purchases. Thus, we would be basically forced to purchase a second iPhone to keep and utilize all the items we have purchased in our "2nd" account. In my humble opinion, not good business, especially after all the money we have invested in purchases from both accounts!

I downloaded a couple CD's this morning and got the message that i could download the same CD's to my other IOS 4 devices. Downloaded the newest Itunes 10.3, what next?

That is certainly very good of them to do so. We as end users are so far away from those who make decisions. Often times our voice just doesn’t reach the higher ups.

You should tell him to really push the issue.

Same issue here. This makes no sense at all. They want us all to have our own Apple ID for buying iTunes media and syncing with iCloud, which is fine, but then they won't let us associate multiple accounts with a Mac, an inherently multi-user device? We aren't trying to associate multiple Apple IDs with a single Mac user account; rather, different Apple IDs with separate Mac user accounts. Ridiculous. I hope this gets worked out in the final version.

Totally agree. I set up automatic downloading and it was working great. I then set it up for my daughter who uses the same mac for itunes not realizing it would effect my account. Whoops. Now I have you wait 90 days for automatic downloading on my account. I have been on the phone with tech support trying to get the 90 day lock released. I do not understand this restriction, makes no sense. My account and my daughters account are in no way affiliated except that we have itunes under our own logins on the same machine. Why would my daughters account have any effect on my account????

Just ran into this problem last night. I have one of my laptops associated with the correct Apple ID, but now I cannot keep my library's in sync because my iPhone and MacBook Air are both associated with another account. Waiting 90 days is rediculous. Anyone find a way to get the time limit removed?

So what seems to be the best we can do ("we": multi-country users, or just anyone with multiple Apple IDs e.g. folks with separate work & home accounts)?

As far as I can guess:

1. Set up automatic downloads for one Apple ID, call it the "main" Apple ID; and

2. Sync in the old fashioned way to a PC/Mac with iTunes; and

3. On iTunes on the PC/Mac, manually log in and out of the other Apple IDs (and also the "main" ID?) to get updates for apps.

Steps 2 and 3 are basically what we already have to do pre-iOS 5 ...

Actually is Step 3 even going to work? Or can iTunes on a PC/Mac also only change Apple ID every 90 days now?

It seems the answer is yes: From

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4895

-> Frequently Asked Questions -> see the 3rd item

it looks like the old fashioned technique will still work to at least to get apps from multiple Apple IDs onto a device. Not sure if it will still work for downloading updates to them. I'm guessing yes.