Family sharing - Stream movies to idevice instead of downloading?

It is May of 2017! C'mon Apple allow streaming items in the family library. I like how Google implemented family sharing: all the purchased movies are under one hood ---> no need to go to purchased items and select family members.

Do something similar. Why I have to switch back and forth family members in order to see their purchases: everything should be in neatly one place.

Lastly, why I cannot stream the purchased movies of the family member. The only available option is to download the whole **** movie.

Agreed. This is rather infuriating. I can't imagine it's a DRM thing because if someone in your Family Sharing pool can download the movie they should also be able to just stream it. Really doesn't make any sense.

The good news is that no one in my family really wants to stream the movies I've purchased on their iOS devices but I'm sure they would if I told them they could (at least my daughters). Even worse when they go to a movie in the iTunes Store and see the price like it hasn't been purchased, granted that's how App Store content works too, which still baffles me. If their part of the family and I've already purchased an app/movie/song then it should just show the download icon rather than a price.

Oh well, it's still weird that this is a thing after more than 2 years of this feature being available.

I had this issue with my wife’s new I phone X. My daughters iPhone shows all our movies bought through my account and she can stream them and of course I can. But on my wife’s phone they did not show our movies and she could only download them from iTunes.

I could not find a solution to this on line. I looked at all three phones and noticed that all three of us have our own Apple ID set up on our phones then had family sharing turned on. The only difference on my daughters phone was her phone was signed in with her id but had my apple id as the I tunes & App store ID, Hence why she could stream our movies etc

I then changed the iTunes & App store Id to my iTunes ID on my wife’s phone and then she could stream all the content while keeping her phone in her own apple ID

Might not be the best fix but might help you out in the meantime to get the kids devices streaming

Your option is a work-around, but comes with risks. If you log-in your credentials to iTunes, then those family members have the apple family 'organizer' rights. A younger child might accidentally make purchases and you can't prevent it. An older child may realize this and purposely make some purchases. Either case I bet Apple will not refund you. I say the risk of misuse is too high.

Each family member should be entitled to all their designated family members iTunes purchases. There should also be a consistent user experience regardless the device the content is being accessed from.

Look at the date of the first thread post here. Shocking that this is still an issue. If Apple has a reason for not changing it, then why not post the reason here. Whether we agree with it or not at least then we would have a reason to see their point of view.

I bet Apple doesn't ever read these threads. Over the years I have read many of these threads looking for tips and advice on Apple products. I have seen some really good questions and requests be completely ignored. The only way to get their attention is for people to stop buying Apple products. As you can see from iPhone X sales people will buy anything if it has Apple's name on it. I keep waiting for that next impressive mobile technology leap, but still yet to arrive, although it doesn't prevent Apple from their annually iPhone fanfare.

It is 2018 and we still have the same problem. @Apple: Why is it not possible that my wife can stream movies which were bought by my ID? What is the purpose of the family sharing feature when it's lacking such convenient options?

We have exactly the same issue! Seems really ridiculous and rather annoying. We stream from all purchases on Apple TV but not on the iPad. Why? I was shocked to see this issue was raised in 2014 and never addressed. That’s pretty rubbish! Come on Apple sort it out!!

It seems that this issue is falling on deaf ears, but I’ll add my voice to the silence anyway. I’ve just run into this exact problem and totally agree that this is unacceptable in 2018. If there are licensing reasons, then at the very least they should come out and say so. The fact that the issue was reported 4 years ago and still hasn’t been addressed is ridiculous!

curious about this also

Im bothered by this also. It just isnt practical to download movies. My family has enjoyed streaming movies from the video app using our shared apple id, but this new family sharing seem to eliminate that option. I may need to go back to sharing my apple id with the kids.

Agreed. Just submitted for this. Total deal breaker since I don't want any movies hogging memory on our family's iPads.

I am curious about this also. You would think that the movies that are being shared would show up in the Video app and you could just stream them, the way that the Family "owner" can. Everyone else has to download them, unless you are on a computer (I think you can stream from a computer if you are a family member, but definitely not on the IOS devices). This needs to be fixed, as most people don't have the time to wait for the download, or the space on the device. It seems like it would be a really easy fix: they just need to set the Video app to look for those movies. Argh!

Yeah it does seem weird that Apple hasn't changed this. I can, however, stream shared movies from my AppleTV. Just not any iDevices. It would be really nice if they did get it to work since I've mistakenly made iTunes purchases using two different Apple ID's. Was hopeful this would be an easy way to access movies from both accounts without having to hog up precious space on my iPhone/iPad.

From a coding point of view, this seems unbelievably easy. They must be worried about a proprietary issue. However I am hopeful they'll figure this out soon. There's just simply no reason it would work for download but not for streaming. Cmon Apple!!!

Couldn't agree more. I bought my wife a new iPad and the sharing of the Apple ID was something I was looking forward to switching over to family sharing to simplify trying to manage multiple phone #'s and email addresses under one Apple ID by device and to also prepare for the day when my kids are teenagers and want their own accounts to make their own purchases, etc. Issues like having 5 devices ringing/buzzing away when someone calls me is annoying and could be tackled by adding Apple ID's and switching to family sharing. However, the inability to stream movies is an immediate deal killer. My wife wants to watch a movie while working out and certainly isn't going to wait for an hour for it to download first. Yuck!

Also agree. My kids now continually download and delete video content on their iOS devices vs streaming. The solution, including navigation and multiple password prompts, is not very elegant. Apple could do much better.