My family has loads of iOS devices, and I can’t figure out the best way to sync everything without causing a mess.
Managing apps on your iOS device can be confusing. How many Macs can I have an app on? How many iPhones can I have my apps on? Here’s the skinny. You can authorize five computers with your iTunes account. That’s five of any computer -- Mac or Windows -- that’s compatible with iTunes. If your family has four computers, you can all use the same account on those computers. You can have that account on as many iOS devices as you can put on your credit card. Potentially, you can have five computers and 50 iPads using the same iTunes account.
The apps you buy can live on five authorized computers and an unlimited number of iOS devices.
Here’s where it gets weird. When syncing an iOS device, you should always sync it with the same computer. Always. When you start using more than one computer to sync, that’s when things get wacko. Everyone in the house should either use the same computer to sync with, or they should sync on their own personal computers with the same iTunes account as their iOS device. Once you settle that, don’t change it unless you have to.
iMac.27
October 11, 2011 at 9:26pm
Umm, so with 6 authors for a 2 paragraph "How to", where the heck is the "How to" ?
The issue ctoddy has is common. It's best to have an iTunes acct that the whole family shares. That way, app and music purchases can all be shared with all 5 devices.
When iCloud goes live, it best the each family member get their OWN iCloud acct because that will sync the mail, contacts and calendar separately for each device. As well as give each person their own ME.com push email.
After that, others could "subscribe" to your calendar so they could see your dates/appointments but not suffer thru all the same alerts.You can authorize iTunes on 5 computers and copy your iTunes to that computer with an external drive.
If you have "loose end" computers that used to be authorized that you don't have anymore, you can Deauthorize ALL computers once per year, and reauthorize the ones that you currently have.Not sure if this is the answer, but I think I tried harder to answer the "how to" than the 6 writers.
jimmyrourk
October 11, 2011 at 4:22am
Is there a way to make certain ical alerts not to appear on one iPhone? My wife doesn't need alerts for all my appointments and vice versa. We sync to the same apple id though.
ctoddy
October 11, 2011 at 12:42am
So here's what I REALLY want. I would love someone to explain the best way to sync 5 iPhones to one account, but still have the calendar's be on their own. There are 5 of us in the family and we each have an iPhone. Me, My Wife, and our 3 teenagers.
There is NO way I want to buy the same app for 2,3, or 5 or more devices so I want them all to sync to the same iTunes account that I get.
What I need help on is the other stuff. For example, the calendar, in order for all 5 of us to see each others calendars and make sure that as we calendar we aren't stepping on things we shouldn't be. However when I do that, if I have an event I want to alarm myself to, say an important meeting, all 6 iDevices and the computer go off. I just want me to go off and the computer.
I'm really hoping iCloud will fix the inherent problems in doing this with all the iThings out there. That's the article I want to see this weekend please.
thejoshualewis
October 11, 2011 at 5:49am
Or, you could NOT sync accounts, and just create a Google account for each one and only use the calendar functionality.
Alex Taylor
October 11, 2011 at 4:34am
ctoddy, you can use SyncMate for syncing calendar events in several iPhones with iCal on Mac.
It will sync contacts and calendars for free, other data (for. ex. images, videos, folders, notes, etc.) can be synced with Expert Edition.
jimmyrourk
October 11, 2011 at 4:23am
I should have read your post before making mine - this is exactly my same issue! Would love a solution to this!! Thanks for posting!!
dewayne72
October 11, 2011 at 6:19am
Hello Everyone,
I just joined today so that I could post here. A possible work around would be to still sync everyone on the same Mac but each person has a different cal name. Meaning each calendar would be called Dad's cal, Mom's cal etc. Then you could turn off the cal you do not want to see on the device. The changes would still show up ical but each person would have their own cal to update. For instance on my own mac I named mine Macbook cal, Outlook cal etc now if I don’t want the stuff from my Outlook to display on my ipad or phone it does not show up unless I turn it on. Hope this helps; it was just an idea I had while sitting reading the message boards.
Dewayne
lvavila
October 10, 2011 at 6:30pm
You say, " When syncing an iOS device, you should always sync it with the same computer. Always. When you start using more than one computer to sync, that’s when things get wacko."
My wife and I both sync to one Windows machine each using our own accounts. Recently we bought 2 iMacs. So if we want to synch with our own iMacs, I have an issue as my empty iTunes want to clear my iPhone. I can deal with that. But you say unless we sync with the same machine every time, things get wacko.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
pb5k
October 10, 2011 at 7:56pm
migrate each of your individual iTunes account/user data to your iMacs
pb5k
October 10, 2011 at 12:28pm
yes, I would like tips on how to best sync multiple iOS devices, but multiple devices using the same account--that just seems to easy and a no-brainer. what I have issue with is both my wife and I each have an iPhone and sync with our respective accounts, but would like to be able to share the same 'family' iPhoto library.
A Pretender
October 10, 2011 at 9:13am
How to sync multiple blah blah blah = Don't. Why even waste the space with an article like this?
thejoshualewis
October 10, 2011 at 9:11am
For real...basically the story says "Forget other devices, just sync your device with one machine forever"...This was as bad as Lifehacker..
