iTunes Apple Id, iCloud id, iTunes Match, Apple Music, Family Sharing == Rocket Science

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Level 1

8 points

iTunes Apple Id, iCloud id, iTunes Match, Apple Music, Family Sharing == Rocket Science

My family has been buying music with same Apple Id since Apple started selling music in 2003, lets refer to the id as: "bob@foo.com".

That original Apple id, "bob@foo.com" has been used to purchase content by everyone in my family since 2003, one card, one place to manage it.

In 2007 I moved myself and later my family out of the PC computing dump of winbloze and PC linux distributions and bought my first mac.

With my first mac I got a mac.com id, then later a me.com, then even later an iCloud.com, Same with family members, Oh brother!

After over ten years of family purchases I have a huge blob of purchased media content from Apple ranging from Sesame Street to Barry Manillow to 50 Cent.

Yes, I'm really digging those "For You" recommendations from Apple Music, might as well be recommendations for listening to penguin mating calls.

So, over 10 years later Apple finally comes out with a basic solution for one card with one place to manage the card and content for families, I guess better late than never.

All my iCloud tools, photos, mail, calendar, pages, etc. are linked to the mac.com, me.com, iCloud.com.

My purchased content and music services are linked to my original Apple id, "bob@me.com" from 2003.

iTunes Match uses that same id, "bob@foo.com" though I am the only one whose devices are setup to use iTunes Match.

Can I set up family sharing such that:

1) I, not my family can still get to my iTunes Match with "bob@foo.com"

2) I get Apple Music with bob@foo.com or one of the Apple babel address @icloud.com, mac.com or me.com? Should I care which one?

2) I can still reach my iCloud services and new family sharing services with my @icloud.com, @me.com, @mac,com ...

3) My family uses their existing iCloud.com or me.com or mac.com babel addresses to get to their existing iCloud services, new iCloud family Services and Apple Music

Are there a few great Apple Rocket Scientist to tell me how to make it "just work".

Or feel free to send me KB links, there are probably a few I haven't read yet.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.4), null

Posted on Jul 3, 2015 12:57 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 5, 2015 9:42 AM in response to rbirch

I have the exact same questions. I don't understand why Apple made this so hard. Why there is no upgrade plan is beyond me. This is what I think:

1) You will only have iTunes Match if you log into iOS Music and Mac iTunes with the bob@foo.com account.

2) This means you will have to enable Apple Music on that account, as it will combine your existing iTunes music (and iTunes Match) with Apple Music.

3) That is no problem (just do as before)

4) That's also no problem. They will not have access to iTunes Match.

I think that the only exception to the rule "each his own ID" will be you when signing into iTunes and the iOS Music app. There you will use bob@foo.com instead of your own iCloud ID. So anybody that will accidentally use that account in iTunes or iOS will be accessing your music instead of their own.

Also, I'm not sure if the bob@foo.com account will count as a family member for Apple Music or not.

But I'm not sure about all of this: I find it all very counterintuitive.

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Answer 2

rbirch Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 9, 2015 6:43 AM in response to Tomeranaray

Thanks for the response.

I'm holding off on pulling the trigger until I find out if someone in the same situation has exercised the experiment and decided to post a read out on the results.

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