Should my wife and I use the same Apple account or separate accounts?

[Jason_A]

Should my wife and I use the same account or our own accounts?

We each have our own iPhones and we share one iPad.

We have one computer where we use iTunes (our main desktop at home)

On iTunes on our computer, sometimes we are logged into my wife's iTunes account and sometimes we are logged into mine.

My iPhone was set up with my account and my wife’s was set up with her account.

My wife's iPad is set up with her account (but it seems like it is pretty easy to log out and then log in with my account if I want, I think).

Since we log into our respective accounts on iTunes and have our own accounts for our iOS devices, we purchase music, games, etc. on both accounts.

If we continue with our current method of different accounts, I am worried that our music, games etc. will be separated so that we won't be able to access them all from each of our devices. For example, I'm thinking of setting up that Home Sharing thing where you can use your iOS device to stream off your computer's iTunes but I think it only streams off the iTunes account you are currently signed into.

Is this a good idea or should we just pick one of our accounts and use it exclusively?

If we just use one account, should our phones both be signed in / started up with that one account?

Thanks for any info.

 

[louishen]

If you share your tastes in music and apps, or they overlap a lot them go for one account, after all you are married. Use one account from now on but keep the other one for any content you need to keep from the old one.

You can both use one iTunes library by moving one of the accounts to the shared User folder (Users > Shared) or to an external disk if that's what you want.

Sharing your iTunes collection

The following assumes you want to keep all your iTunes music and movies on a shared folder and ensure new music is always stored there, and that you want to share the iTunes library among multiple users

First, you need to consolidate your iTunes Library to a folder you have chosen (let's say External > Media).

Select the command consolidate library from the File Menu > Library > Consolidate Library (or from the Advanced Menu in iTunes 7). This will copy all your iTunes media to the shared folder and link the iTunes library file to it

The files will now be in the folder while the library file (the index as it were) will still be in the Users > Me > Music folder of your mac.

Copy it to shared Media folder, start iTunes with the alt key pressed and you will have the option to select the library file now on the shared drive

Select the library file you just copied and now both your music and the library are on the external

Press the alt key in any other accounts to get iTunes to see the library file, now both users are using the same index. Make sure both Users itunes have the same location for the music folder set in their advanced preferences.

Also make sure that all users have read and write privileges for the folder and the library file