Two iPhones plus iCloud = confusion

We are in the same situation...except add two kids with iPhones. I think the easiest would be to create a seperate iTune account for each person.

If you go into settings, iCloud and scroll to the bottom, you can delete the account and then log in to your new one.

Still haven't figured out how to share purchases and photos this way.

My wife and I have the same situation.

However we did not sync our contacts and email with the cloud.

Before the whole icloud thingy I had it syncing with our individual gmail accounts.

if I turned on iCloud sync for contaccts and mail,it would then stop syning with Google.

our email and contact remain separate essentially because theydont sync with iCloud but with our gmail accounts in the google cloud.

Also while setting it up I did get the prompt to merge or not and I do remember opting for it to not merge.

In the same boat. I have updated my phone and our shared iPad but have not updated the wife's phone yet as I wasn't sure if it would wipe one of our contacts or create lots of duplicates, thanks for answering that one. As you said ideally I want content from both phones to go to iCloud but I'd also like that content available on the shared iPad. There are certain things I don't mind sharing between the two phones such as calendar which may be really useful as we will both have access any appointments we have made instantly but I don't want the confusion of sharing messages especially on the iPad? Am at a loss but will keep checking back on your thread for an answer, good luck.

Sounds like a plan. Think I will update her phone to ios 5, sign her in to iCloud but turn it off. That should allow me to go into settings and turn on the functions I want one at a time and leave the ones I don't off. Thanks for your help.

I'm in the same boat. I have my iPhone setup for iCloud and am planning on updating my wifes iPhone tonight. We don't want to share anything. If I understand correctly I need to have her set up a separate iCloud account and then enter it during initial setup? If I recall it asks for your apple id, not iCloud id. I love apple but they really make it seem like no family uses the same apple id!!

I thought about this bfore upgrading my fathers and my iPhones. As we use the same account for iTunes. For iCloud I converted my mobile me over, for my dad I created a new Apple ID for him. I have both phones upgraded now, with two separate iCloud accounts, this will take care of the sharing conflict. However, to continue to share the iTunes you have to go into settings-store and check the Apple ID and change it if needed. He has his own iCloud, I have my own but we still share the same iTunes account. Everything is working great so far set up this way. However if you don't want to share music, apps or books you will have to turn auto. downloads in the store setting. I hope this helped.

PS: you can use an existing email ro create a new id, you do not after create a new me.com adress if you do not want to.

Message was edited by: eagle4031

Boy am I glad to see others struggling with this (Misery loves company and all that.). I really hope there is a simple way for a family to share the content they have purchased but manage independent information (I.e. contacts, bookmarks, iMessaging, Reminders, etc.)

Unfortunately, it sounds like the solutions many people are mentioning requires people to turn off iCloud synching which defeats the whole benefit of protecting your stuff with the cloud.

I'm in a similar situation and intended to have daughter's iPod 4 (originally sharing my Apple ID and iTunes acct but I set up her own Apple ID and iTunes acct and backed up/synced her iPod to her new accounts before upgrading her iPod to iOS 5) have her own Cloud. Somehow thru setup (even though I entered her new Apple ID) she is sharing my iCloud account -- ugh!

By reading above, I should delete my iCloud account from her iPod but will deleting from her iPod also delete MY iCloud account? I want all our stuff to be totally separated but will this somehow affect her prevoius purchases through my Apple/iTunes account?

Thanks in advance for all your knowledge!

Unfortunately, my mother started deleting contacts without asking me first...which proceeded to delete them all from my phone. Do you know of a way to get them back? Or am I just SOL? 😟

Eagle,

If I understand this correctly, your father is still able to sinc his iphone with your itunes account even though his phone was set up under his own itunes account?

Reason I ask... I am in the same boat with my husband. We have always sinc'd with my computer and itunes account to share music and apps. We have no problem sharing a calendar or contacts but would like separate icloud accounts.

Arizonapita,

No we use the same ID for the iTunes store. For iCloud I use my mobile me account and I created a new Apple ID for my father. Creating a second ID is easy by going into settings-iCloud and creating a new Apple ID, you might have to sign out first, if you're already signed in. So now you should each should have your own ID for iCloud. Now go into settings-store and look to see what ID is there, if both devices are the ones you have been sharing for iTunes than you should be ok. However, the phone you created the new ID for in I cloud may have the new ID under store. If so, simply sign out and sign in using the Apple ID the two of you share for purchases. Now, you both should be using the same ID for iTunes and have two different iCloud's. If you are running windows and sharing a computer like my father and I are you will need to have to acounts for logging in. I got this set up yesterday and it works fine. A word of caution though, if you use outlook read about some of the issues others are having. I have not yet tried to sync contacts or calanders to outlook. Photostream, bookmarks and mail work fine. I hope this helped. Let me know if it did. Thank you, Eagle

Take care and keep smiling!