iPad has apps purchased through 2 appleIDs

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Level 2

387 points

iPad has apps purchased through 2 appleIDs

My company bought an iPad for the sales manager. The IT manager downloaded 3 apps -- Dropbox, Pages and Keynote -- using his appleID before giving the iPad to the sales manager. I did get the iPad reconfigured so that it uses the sales manager's appleID now, and she has bought a dozen apps with her appleID. But she cannot update the original 3 apps without the IT manager's password.

Do we have any choices better than deleting the apps and re-purchasing them under the sales manager's appleID?

(When it first came and popped up asking for an appleID I watched him put his personal appleID in there and said "are you sure you should be doing that?" I guess the answer is that I'm sure that you should NOT do that! And at $20, it wasn't the most expensive lesson learned...)

Does anyone have any thoughts about managing the AppStore on a company-owned device with company-owned apps? The sales manager's appleID is associated with her company credit card. The device gets passed around the sales people to be used as needed, and we are not interested in giving them all the password to the sales manager's company credit card!

Posted on May 2, 2012 10:08 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

tnethers

Level 3

527 points

May 2, 2012 10:35 AM in response to cathy fasano

Unfortunately, at this time there is no way to merge Apple IDs. You have a few ways to deal with your issues:

1) Make a general account to be shared with a known password and gift the apps to it.

2) Make a general account to be shared with a known password and use Gift cards.

2) Make an account to be known by X but not Y and make X update, etc.

3) Consider the apps expendible and let the employees retain the apps with their own Apple ID.

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Answer 2

cathy fasano Author

Level 2

387 points

May 7, 2012 10:50 AM in response to tnethers

Yeah, I'm thinking #2...

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Answer 3

Mar 7, 2013 9:47 AM in response to cathy fasano

Do "gift cards" specify WHAT they get, or just a $ ammount?

I would think #1 is better, so you can control WHAT gets deployed.

And what about an iPad version of the iPhone management software? For iPhones you can control every aspect of operation and settings.

I have two iPAds to worry about and am here seeing what others are doing to formulate our IT policy.

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Answer 4

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Mar 7, 2013 9:56 AM in response to Richard E. Cooke

Gift cards just specify an amount. If you want to specify an app, you do indeed have to gift the app to the relevant user.

Apple Configurator works with iPads as well and gives you the same capabilities as with an iPhone, not counting anything strictly related to the iPad not being a phone, of course.

Regards.

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Answer 5

Mar 7, 2013 11:44 AM in response to varjak paw

Thanks!

I found the configurator instructions here: http://help.apple.com/configurator/mac/1.0/?lang=en-us#cadbf9c811

And wile I have not found an Apple ID for Corporate use manual yet, I'm gettng the feeling the "best practice" is to have a corporate ID that buys the apps, possibly under the VPP program - even for 1 app. That way you get redeem codes that can be used to associate the purchase with a specific device.

Each device would have its own Apple Id - not using personal IDs. Although it could be the redeem codes process does not tie the purchase to the user's Apple ID, so if they leave the company, they don't get to keep the software. I have not read anything about this yet. Which is why I figure the best practice is to have corporate owned IDs assigned to each device. And use the configurator to lock down anything that costs money.

Anybody know of a relevant posting that makes this clearer?

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