I don't know if you had your question answered by any of the previous posts. I scanned them, but most seemed to be having the same issues. So here's my attempt at making it clear.
"Apple ID's" have been confusing for a while - even before iCloud.
- I have an Apple ID for my iTunes account. It has a login name with password. This login name can be an email address, but may not be, as mine is not.
- I also have a MobileMe Apple ID, which is an @me.com email address login with a password.
- In fact, I had a family MobileMe account, so each of my family members had their own @me.com email address. Now we each have a separate iCloud Apple ID using each of our @me.com email addresses.
Ok, so why tell you that? Per your question, you're trying to use to separate Apple ID's that are linked to separate iTunes accounts. That's not likely to work. If your husband already has a @me.com email address, you can use that to create a new iCloud Apple ID, or you can create a whole new one for him via the iCloud setup on his device. Whatever device he's using just needs to use that Apple ID for it's iCloud setup.
Then, in each of the apps (on his devices) that access the iTunes store, you will want to go into those app settings and put in your Apple ID/password for the iTunes account that you've been sharing. Unless you do that, he won't have access to your library of purchased music, apps, iBooks, etc.
When you're done, he'll have the ability to buy and download from that shared iTunes account, no problem.
His devices will be syncing (and backing up, if you choose to do so) via his separate iCloud account that you set up earlier. Each iCloud account has it's own separate 5GB of free storage. This may not seem like much, but I'm syncing an iMac, a MacBook Pro, an iPhone 4, and an iPad, plus backing up the iPad and iPhone, to the same account and I'm only using about 7GB. (I'm a transplanted MobileMe user with 25GB).
Regarding issues with backing up for the first time once you have all of that set up: I had no issue with syncing, but the first iCloud backup was more troublesome. Here's what you need to do for your first backup:
- Make sure that the Account (Apple ID) in the MobileMe settings is his personal iCloud account (not your shared iTunes Apple ID) with the password that matches his iCloud Apple ID.
- Plug your device into a wall charger.
- Check to make sure you have a strong wifi signal. I recommend that you first go to Airplane mode, then turn wifi back on, so that your 3G service is turned off. That way, if your wifi signal is dropped for a moment, the phone doesn't try to continue the connection via 3G (which won't work, but may stop the process).
- Go to settings General, Auto-Lock, and set it to lock in a minute or two. Why? Because Apple instructions say it needs to be locked. I don't really know why, but it may be that when the lock enables, the process starts.
- Go to the iCloud settings, scroll down and turn on iCloud Backup.
- Then click Back Up Now.
- Then go to bed, it's gonna take a while the first time.
My observations on iCloud backup:
- I tried about 25 times unsuccessfully to get my devices to back up the first time - usually trying both my iPhone and iPad at the same time. When I was successful it was by following the instructions above, but only doing one device at a time.
- Apple may have been having problems and my eventual success was a result of that being fixed, but I'd like to believe that my thoroughly thought-out plan based on their instructions (with some details added) helped.
- I think I may have been inadvertently aborting the process in prior unsuccessful attempts because the animation on the progress bar doesn't show progress until it's almost finished. Ignore that and walk away from it. It's a pot waiting to boil thing.
- This is nice: After the the first backup is successful, you can backup anytime you're on wifi by hitting the "Backup Now" button, even if you're not plugged into power, without letting it lock, and without disabling 3G. The backup is pretty quick after that first one.
- It's important to remember that iCloud backup isn't a full replacement for backing up to your computer. See this link http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4910
My observations on iCloud sync:
- This is totally separate from iCloud backup. iCloud sync is just actively updating the information shared between apps on various devices/computers that are set up on the same iCloud account.
- Obviously you must have an internet connection (wifi or 3G) for it to work.
- This worked from day 1 for me with iOS 5 installed and iCloud set up. It's pretty cool to add a task in the new Reminder app on my iPad and see it show up almost instantly on my iPhone.
- It's kinda sucky that there's no Windows XP iCloud client since my work laptop (employer supplied) is still on XP. Other than not being able to sync between this laptop and my Apple devices, iCloud sync is pretty sweet.
Other than getting started, iCloud seems to be working flawlessly on-going.
