Q: My recent calls appearing on another iPhone!?

My wife and I are having the same problem (recent calls appearing on each others' iPhones), although it only cropped up a few days ago when she upgraded to an iPhone 6. While not disastrous, it's definitely annoying (and challenging to understand why Apple would feel the need to iCloud the recent calls instead of letting each device store its individual call history.)

Having worked through this forum and other Apple Support info, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma...

1) We're not supposed to be using a shared Apple ID on both of our iPhones for poorly clarified reasons, but separating IDs per device or person is obviously what is recommended in this forum, at least for the purposes of resolving this particular issue. The family sharing option is the suggested alternative.

2) The ONLY reason we decided to share one Apple ID across our phones (and MacBooks) is because we make multiple additions and alterations to our collective contact list each day, and sharing a single ID has been the one way we've found that easily and seamlessly updates those changes to all our devices. It has worked so well that I would have thought it was a feature Apple should have promoted rather than undermined with cloud-side tinkering on call histories. At present, family sharing does not permit contact syncing (and likely never will,) and the only Customer Support fixes I have seen in other forums include trying to "share contact" every time a change is made (which would be a time-hog of a nightmare for our situation) or periodically switching all devices back to a single ID for the purposes of contact syncing and then back to device-specific IDs for normal operations (which is a hassle as well, and does not provide real-time access to the latest changes and additions to the contacts list.)

Does anyone have any suggestions that would eliminate shared call histories but preserve shared contacts?

Thanks..

Store your shared contacts somewhere other than iCloud. You can sync contacts with any number of services, including Google, Yahoo, Outlook.com, etc.

jhcarw wrote:

 

We're not supposed to be using a shared Apple ID on both of our iPhones for poorly clarified reasons...

I don't consider these words from Apple to be poorly clarified.

Can I share my Apple ID with someone else?

You shouldn't share your Apple ID with anyone else. It provides access to personal information including contacts, photos, device backups, and more. Sharing your Apple ID with someone else means you're giving them access to all your personal content, and it may lead to confusion about who actually owns the account.

To share photos, a calendar, iTunes purchases and more with someone else, try these sharing features.

My wife and I started having this issue as well recently. While I understand that sharing an iCloud ID is not the optimal way of doing things, there is one reason that we haven't switched to family sharing. This reason is iCloud photos. There is no solution for sharing ALL our photos with eachother, in full resolution, and with all metadata. I pay for the 500GB plan so that we can have all our photos and videos in the cloud, and that way we can both have access to them and edit them at any time. There is currently no solution for doing this with family sharing, and sharing individual albums is not a solution. Also, we are able to share that 500GB storage for not just our family photos, but also our documents. If these issues were addressed, I would gladly quit sharing my iCloud ID with my wife and use family sharing instead.

Make an album that includes all photos/videos. Share that.

SpidermonkeyCVO wrote:

 

There is no solution for sharing ALL our photos with eachother, in full resolution, and with all metadata.

My wife and I do it.  Refer to Csound's post.

Unfortunately, that is not a solution. The shared photos and videos are of a reduced quality and contain NO metadata.

Then do it your way and live with the result. iCloud is a single user system, using it as a multi user system will have defects. (as you already know)

SpidermonkeyCVO wrote:

 

Unfortunately, that is not a solution. The shared photos and videos are of a reduced quality and contain NO metadata.

Then you'll just have to live with all the issues resulting from a single identity for two persons.

I suppose so.

Here's the thing, I am the only household technical support for numerous devices (2 ipads and 5 iphones), the 2 ipads are used by many people (not just one person), if I were to use a different AppleID for each person in the house, I see a mess of id's and passwords I'd have to sift through every time and which ID do I use for each ipad that has multiple users? Or do we now need to create a unique apple ID for each device rather than user, to do it the "right way". I think some of you advanced posters here are forgetting the hassles and complexity of admining beyond your simple one person usage of a couple devices.

Our household has been successful so far with one ID but are not opposed to changing if this change makes sense and can maintain all these devices effectively and efficiently. So far I have heard that family sharing is not very polished and it is unclear what advantages or new issues may come up when so much has worked just fine for so long with the single ID.

This thread is about a single NEW issue some users are having due to changes made by Apple recently. If Apple wants users to change how they maintain multiple accounts then they simply need to make that fact clear and provide a simple and well thought out means to get there. This thread is about a newly introduced bug that did not exist nor should exist ever automatically. And if it's not a bug then Apple should say so, that it's functioning as intended and accept any potential liability that this "feature" involving privacy suddenly being turned on by default may illicit.

All the posts (most rude I might add) that imply that this is simply a matter of using AppleID for multiple devices issue, it is not. It is a newly added bug, unless Apple officially owns up to intentionally causing this and therefore suddenly and without disclosure added this to force users to move to family sharing and multiple IDs (yeah right). Yes using a single ID may resolve the issue...much like turning off all the devices and tossing them in the garbage, will as well, but it's hardly a solution for many of us and still leaves the issue unanswered as to how to migrate from on ID to multiple IDs over a family network that also share devices.

Here's the thing.  IOS devices have ALWAYS been designed as single-user devices.  On the flip side, one user could always be associated with multiple devices.  "Way back when" it was reasonably painless to ignore that design characteristic but, with each major IOS level change, the difficulties increased and, for you, they finally reached the breaking point.

This is not a "newly added bug" but rather the latest evolvement in the single-user & multiple device concept.  The system IS functioning as intended and Apple HAS said so.

Use the same Apple ID for both Store purchases and iCloud (recommended)

We recommend that you use the same Apple ID for Store purchases and iCloud. Using multiple Apple IDs might be confusing and might cause issues with accessing purchased content or using some services.

Can I share my Apple ID with someone else?

You shouldn't share your Apple ID with anyone else. It provides access to personal information including contacts, photos, device backups, and more. Sharing your Apple ID with someone else means you're giving them access to all your personal content, and it may lead to confusion about who actually owns the account.

To share photos, a calendar, iTunes purchases and more with someone else, try these sharing features.

Can I merge multiple Apple IDs into one?

Apple IDs can't be merged. We recommend that you use the same Apple ID in the iTunes Store and iCloud. Using multiple Apple IDs might be confusing and might cause issues with accessing purchased content or using some services.

Nope, it's about the choice of whether to use it as intended or not. You make your choice to not do so and the result is yours to live with. It's quite simple as choices go.

This is very confusing when you have a large multi-generation family under the same roof which includes support for multi-user devices. So far it sounds like the best bet will be to remove all icloud features from all devices (and use 3rd party sharing, like gmail calender etc) and I'm betting that's not really what Apple would like to happen with family customers. But the multiple ID's just can't work as designed in my situation, there's just too much complexity there and maintenance overhead.

I could easily provide solutions for your problems were it not for one error in your thinking.

socalpk wrote:

 

...support for multi-user devices.

IOS devices are not and never have been multi-user devices.  Period.  Your insistence in using them that way means that you can not use Apple's facilities and, yes, you must use items like third-party sharing.  Yes you're correct in that "...that's not really what Apple would like to happen with family customers" but no solution, Apple's or anyone else's, is the best for 100% of the population.