Siri keeps changing "My Info" to my partner's info, and vice-versa. Ugh.

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nuthouse Author

Level 1

7 points

Siri keeps changing "My Info" to my partner's info, and vice-versa. Ugh.

Hi All,

We are having a problem where we cannot have separate "my info" settings for Siri on our 2 iPhones.

Here's what we experience:

In order to set up Siri, we each go into Settings-->General-->Siri-->My Info, and set who we are.
Unfortunately, when one of us sets this, it changes the other's as well. Ugh!
(We expect that our individual settings would stick, seeing as they are really device settings, not "contacts" settings.)

And here's our setup:

My partner and I each have an iPhone (4s, running iOS 6... but this problem has existed for us on iOS 5 as well for over a year now).
We each have our own iCloud accounts. And our phones are pointing to these as their primary iCloud accounts.
However, we also have a shared iCloud account. This is the account we use for all our contacts. (Contacts is turned off for our primary iCloud accounts.)

Any ideas? This is a bug I would hope gets around to getting fixed. I see others reporting this problem in these forums with no resolution.

I don't want to turn on Contacts for our primary accounts because that would mean not just creating our own individual records, but also creating records for those related to us (so we can say "call my son", for example).

Blergh.

Thanks. I hope somebody has managed to work around this.

-td

Posted on Oct 6, 2012 2:11 PM

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Answer 1

batthis

Level 1

10 points

Oct 28, 2017 6:41 PM in response to nuthouse

My son and I have separate Apple ids / iCloud accounts. My info still gets Chenard to his and vice versa. Haven’t solved the mystery yet as to why our two accounts are linked somehow. Anyone know what could be the problem?

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Answer 2

GOOP95

Level 1

11 points

Nov 24, 2017 9:50 AM in response to KiltedTim

I’ve been using the same iCloud account with my wife for a decade and only recently (latest iOS?) has the my info been syncing a cross the two devices.

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Answer 3

KiltedTim

Level 10

225,912 points

Oct 6, 2012 2:17 PM in response to nuthouse

You're syncing your contacts to the same iCloud account.

This is going to happen so long as you continue to do that. iCloud is designed to sync your information to multiple devices thay you use.

Turn on your individual iCloud accounts for contacts, but keep the one you share set as primary.

Set up your own personal contact info in your personal account, then set that one as your info.

This is not a bug. It's working exactly as designed.

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Answer 4

Tgara

Level 4

3,597 points

Oct 6, 2012 2:22 PM in response to KiltedTim

Kilted Tim is right. iCloud is working exactly as it should. The problem is how YOU are using it. Set up separate iCloud accounts for each of you, and all should work well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222554/A-wifes-wife-partner-says-judge- The-trendy-term-downgrades-marriage.html

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Answer 5

nuthouse Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 6, 2012 4:03 PM in response to Tgara

Hey Tgara,

One person's bug is another person's "working exactly as it should". Bug or not, this is a stupid implementation.

We do have separate iCloud accounts. These are our primary accounts, and our personal calendars reside in them. And, we are using the iOS features that (a) allow us to gather up Contacts from multiple accounts and (b) choose a contact from any of those accounts as the "My Info" for Siri.

I would be OK with creating a Contact record for ourselves in each of our primary iCloud accounts (despite being concerned about other shared contacts ending up in there), but I don't really want to make duplicate records for all our related folks so that Siri can work when I say "call my son".

My question remains, has anybody found a decent workaround for this?

thx,

-td

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUL3RIXtZfM (couldn't find Jonathan Richman doing it)

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Answer 6

KiltedTim

Level 10

225,912 points

Oct 6, 2012 5:50 PM in response to nuthouse

There is no "workaround" as long as you insist on sharing one set of contacts between multiple devices being used by different people.

An iCloud account is intended to belong to one person. If more than one device is using it, it assumes that it is the same person, so when one says 'I'm Joe", it applies the change to ALL devices using that set of contacts.

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Answer 7

Tgara

Level 4

3,597 points

Oct 7, 2012 9:47 AM in response to nuthouse

Who's Jonathan Richman?

One person's bug is another person's "working exactly as it should".

Sorry, mate, it isn't. You can't say it's a bug when the software is working as designed. As Tim mentioned, an iCloud account is meant for one person. The simple fact is that the shared iCloud account is going to continue to give you problems.

One workaround you could try is to export the contacts database you share with your wife (😉) to your regular computer, delete the shared iCloud account from both of your phones, then each of you import the shared contacts database. With this approach, you will both have the same contacts information on your individual phones and individual iCloud accounts, but without the shared iCloud account, thus avoiding the issue with iCloud thinking you and your wife are the same person. Essentially, you both have the same contacts info on your individual phones. Would that work for you?

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Answer 8

nuthouse Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 7, 2012 11:48 AM in response to Tgara

Tgara,

Thanks for the suggestion.

That workaround doesn't fit our needs, but I appreciate the effort.

We will continue to confuse Siri or go ahead and enable Contacts in our personal iCloud accounts just for the "my info" people. (And use the shared iCloud contacts for everyone else)

As for what is a bug and what isn't, as a coder I understand the desire to differentiate between "it's broken" and "it is made in a way that doesn't work as I need it to". However, in practice there is little difference between those two things in users' minds.

As for Jonathan Richman, see him here:

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNh-IAXaB7I

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPCHU-cBWwk

-td

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Answer 9

Tgara

Level 4

3,597 points

Oct 7, 2012 12:16 PM in response to nuthouse

TD,

FYI, my wife and I each have our own iCloud accounts. I have my (mostly business) contacts in my account, and she has her friends and colleages in hers. We do, however, have some contacts in common (family mostly). But instead of creating a separate iCloud account for those common contacts, we instead just exchange those contacts manually so we each have them in our own separate accounts. This essentially avoids the confusion you are experiencing with iCloud.

I do believe that Apple may go to some kind of sharing system, similar to Shared Reminders in the Reminders app. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

As for Jonathan Richman, thanks for the links. Not my kind of music, but he does have a similar style to Jimmy Buffett.

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