Family Sharing plus Apple Music

Question

Level 1

8 points

Family Sharing plus Apple Music

Before setting up family sharing wanted to get some understanding

First, I made the mistake of signing up for Apple Music before setting up family sharing. Now that I've upgraded some other devices and family members want access to Apple Music, I have to figure this out. I did not realize it requires setting up Family Sharing to make use of the family subscription- thought is was ID driven.

Part of my confusion regarding the best path to setup comes from the fact Apple never consolidates AppleIDs, so I have more than 1 including legacy IDs - that applies to other members of the family as well.

I signed up for a family plan on Apple Music under "AppleID_1"

I believe that's my most current / in-use AppleID

Most of our purchases though, including apps, have been and are likely to be made under the most current one of my wife's - call that "AppleID_2"

First question: is Family Sharing retroactive to apps purchased and downloaded under a given ID - I would guess no, but if it is, that's useful to know, because then I'd likely want to set up Family Sharing under the ID with the most apps - simply from a management perspective

In any event, I decided to go ahead and try to set up Family sharing from my personal iOS device which already has my "AppleID_1" configured into it.

All seemed well, it displayed "AppleID_1" initially, for iCloud, but then goes to the "Share Purchases" screen where it tells me it will use a 'legacy' AppleID, call it "AppleID_3" - which i don't know if apple did or didn't map to the same account as "AppleID_1". It's a similar id, just with an obsolete domain.

Apple let you use email addresses for AppleIDs, but those tend to change and expire over time, especially if you've based them on certain Apple services.

At this point I stopped because I don't know if this is even going to be matched to the id I used to set up Apple Music family subscription.

Second Question: Can anyone help illuminate Apple's increasingly complicated ID scheme, and the least annoying way to set up family sharing?

given that apps and music prior to this setup are scattered over multiple IDs and the initial attempt reflected 2 different AppleIDs at 2 different screens in the setup process? I stopped any attempt to complete setup when I saw the 2nd ID.

thanks

Posted on Oct 10, 2015 8:28 AM

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Answer 1

Jon Milan

Level 2

185 points

Oct 10, 2015 9:23 AM in response to marc265

Good questions.

Note that new Apple .Mac / .Me / .iCloud accounts (.iCloud may be an exception) weren't always linked to your Apple Store account. So with well over 10 .iCloud accounts in our home (add up to 5 aliases per account as .Mac & .Me allowed 5 aliases while .iCloud allows 3) and separate Store accounts, life gets confusing.

There used to be some good utilities for sharing / syncing iTunes Libraries across computers and accounts as long as songs weren't DRM protected. But Home Sharing killed off the ones I used.

Application sharing is still an issue. I wind up using multiple Apple Store accounts on an iOS device and that's just a pain when updates come along.

I use Home Sharing instead of iTunes Match for sharing music, though it's not really a great answer either. Sometimes I just wind up burning songs to a CD and re-ripping them on another computer. Or setting up all the songs in on an external drive of the home server that is accessible to the household. Libraries aren't shared. I wish Apple would fix that by splitting the iTunes Library into "shareable" metadata (list of songs, albums, artists, etc) and "personal" metadata (playlists, song and album ratings, play counts, etc). But Apple is moving into the iCloud, thinking there's an answer to be found there. Seems to me Apple's lost sight of the question amidst the iFog.

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Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

62,492 points

Oct 10, 2015 10:03 AM in response to marc265

First question: is Family Sharing retroactive to apps purchased and downloaded under a given ID - I would guess no, but if it is, that's useful to know, because then I'd likely want to set up Family Sharing under the ID with the most apps - simply from a management perspective

"Once you’ve set up Family Sharing, all the eligible songs, albums, movies, TV shows, books, and apps ever purchased by family members are immediately available to everyone else in the family."

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Answer 3

marc265 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2015 10:09 AM in response to ed2345

thx. bummer that i set up my Apple Music under a different ID first, but it occurs to me I can let it lapse end of the month (off of autorenew), then renew under the ID with the most apps and music previously purchases, although now I'll have to go undo all the family sharing i just set up...

so I should add that when I checked in iTunes under the old legacy account ID it showed the Music subscription, even though the confirm of that subs had been sent to the newer email - so I think Apple mapped those two IDs together. In any event, the whole AppleID thing is still a shocking mess for a company that tries to focus on user experience. I call this aspect of the experience iHell.

Also Apple Music is still rough. It seems hit or miss whether the App on any given device will recognize you have a subscription, rather than prompting you to sign up fresh for a new trial.

I've got a couple of devices where it took several tries and then it eventually caught on acknowledging the family sharing invite, and I still have 2 stuck where they are not recognizing the family sharing access. REALLY ANNOYING.

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Answer 4

marc265 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2015 10:19 AM in response to Jon Milan

thx. i've basically committed to going with the 'latest' - have had home sharing in use for a while, and will continue to have exactly the same problems you mention - apps from multiple ids, etc

but trying to just figure out, given i want family sharing (because i want everyone to have access to Apple Music), the best/correct setup

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Answer 5

ed2345

Level 9

62,492 points

Oct 10, 2015 11:45 AM in response to marc265

marc265 wrote:

thx. bummer that i set up my Apple Music under a different ID first, but it occurs to me I can let it lapse end of the month (off of autorenew), then renew under the ID with the most apps and music previously purchases, although now I'll have to go undo all the family sharing i just set up...

so I should add that when I checked in iTunes under the old legacy account ID it showed the Music subscription, even though the confirm of that subs had been sent to the newer email - so I think Apple mapped those two IDs together. In any event, the whole AppleID thing is still a shocking mess for a company that tries to focus on user experience. I call this aspect of the experience iHell.

Also Apple Music is still rough. It seems hit or miss whether the App on any given device will recognize you have a subscription, rather than prompting you to sign up fresh for a new trial.

I've got a couple of devices where it took several tries and then it eventually caught on acknowledging the family sharing invite, and I still have 2 stuck where they are not recognizing the family sharing access. REALLY ANNOYING.

Marc,

It is possible that the same Apple ID had its email address changed at some point, as can be easily done at https://appleid.apple.com/ . In this case iTunes will treat it as the same account, but with a new email address.

I don't use Apple Music, so can't comment on the other problems you are experiencing. However you can bring them up at the dedicated forum for Apple Music at Apple Music on Mac . Or, you can investigate streaming music alternatives that may suit you better, such as Spotify.

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