How to enable and manage iCloud Family Sharing on iOS and OS X

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  • Reply 21 of 35
    technotechno Posts: 737member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MacApfel View Post



    ... The real rubbish is that if you have kids, and they already have an Apple id, you can't convert these ids to child Apple ids. So, either you have to create new ids for them, which doesn't make any sense, or you have to add them as adults to family sharing %u2013 which also doesn't make any sense. So, kids with existing Apple ids can't really be added to family sharing. I only hope Apple will soon solve this seemingly easy to solve problem.



    You hit the nail on the head. I am guessing that if Apple allowed you to convert these accounts, they would be acknowledging that people lied about their kids' age during the creation of an iCloud account. Thus, this might open up a liability issue in the form of a class action. Just a guess. 

     

    But the problem remains. I have held off from the Family sharing for this reason and a few others.


    • From what I understand, when the kid grows up and leaves home, he or she takes their purchases with them (that I paid for) and I am left with none of them. Or it is the reverse. I don't remember. Either way, it is not good. 

    • I want some certainty that all of my app prior purchases will be compatible with family sharing. [Without going into the app store and looking up ever single app I own to see if it is compatible]

     

    I do not agree with the premise of this article that says, 

    Quote:

     Previously, some families would resort to registering a single iTunes Store login on multiple devices, but the solution was hardly ideal. With automatic downloads turned on, for example, purchasing an app or song on one device would unnecessarily push content to every iPhone and iPad associated with that account.


     

    Automatic downloads does not need to be turned on for the single account solution to work. In fact, I would say it works better if it is not. We use it in our family and my son says, "Dad, I want to buy this game. Is it ok?" I buy it on my device and then he downloads it on his. Yes, it is not as eloquent as Family sharing, but is a little human face to face interaction so bad?

  • Reply 22 of 35
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    [QUOTE]However, when family members buy anything, instead of being paid from my iTunes balance, the payment is made from my credit card on file.

    This, is stupid, Apple. Fix this.[/QUOTE]

    Maybe not so stupid. And not broken. What if you buy one of your kids an iTunes gift card for Christmas, birthday, or whatever? Do you want all members of the family sucking down the balance on the kid's personal gift card? That would be a bummer of a way to give a personal gift. Gift cards should absolutely be tied to an individual account and not the common family credit card. If this isn't how they work I'd say that would be a bug.

    I use iTunes gift cards almost exclusively because you can always get them at discount at big box stores and other places. Because I am essentially gifting the card to myself my iTunes purchases draw down from my iTunes balance before hitting the backing credit cards. My expectation is that gift cards redeemed on a family member's account should be locked to the individual family member's purchases.

    From Apple's support site:

    [QUOTE]After you set up your family, any time a family member initiates a new purchase it will be billed directly to your account unless that family member has gift or store credit. First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer's card. As the family organizer, any receipts generated by the transaction will be sent to you. Learn more about how iTunes Store purchases are billed.[/QUOTE]

    Maybe do a little more investigation before declaring someone else is stupid.
  • Reply 23 of 35
    'Family Sharing' is kind of half baked. It is cool when your kids are little or you have a lot to of money, but my kids are grown (and I am poor). But I have purchased a lot of movies on iTunes, it is my favorite venue for movies, since I have an apple TV. If I wanted to loan out a movie, the way I used to loan out DVD's it doesn't work. My kids want to make their own purchase, but I am not able to let them see movies, TV shows or music that I have purchased and want to share.
  • Reply 24 of 35
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member

    As a registered developer, Apple asked me a few months ago to accept the terms of Family Sharing. Without reading the legalese, I took this to mean apps sold by developers who didn't accept the Family Sharing terms couldn't be used by more than the organizing AppleID. Does anybody know how commonly developers have accepted the Family Sharing terms? Has anyone seen an app that isn't usable by a family member?

  • Reply 25 of 35
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    The deal breaker with Family Sharing is that it doesn't work with iTunes Match. We shared an Apple ID for all purchases and with iTunes Match everybody had access to everything we shared. The downside with that approach is that it is harder to manage ones own music and apps as a separate group from the main library. Once converted to family sharing however, managing ones own music is easier but now only I have access to the library stored on Apples servers. New purchases from Apple can be shared by everybody but the thousands of tracks previously shared are only accessible by me.

    iTunes Match wins the day and we went back to the old way.
  • Reply 26 of 35
    My wife and I set up family sharing with me as the family organizer. I Started downloading a bunch of songs she had purchased under her Apple ID. Worked for some but the rest now just appear "greyed out" in my Music app and won't play. Tried deleting them and downloading again but just gives me "unable to download song" errors. Any ideas?
  • Reply 27 of 35
    wubbus wrote: »
    My wife and I set up family sharing with me as the family organizer. I Started downloading a bunch of songs she had purchased under her Apple ID. Worked for some but the rest now just appear "greyed out" in my Music app and won't play. Tried deleting them and downloading again but just gives me "unable to download song" errors. Any ideas?

    Try signing out and into iTunes.
  • Reply 28 of 35
    oberpongo wrote: »
    Its a great Concept But all Family members have to be in the same country. They need to work on multiple country support. For ex pats this is a hassle.
    Couldn't agree more! Somehow while away in China working, my Thai GF's iPad got associated with a different Apple ID & mine's based in the USA, but they're headed in the right direction.
  • Reply 29 of 35
    timbittimbit Posts: 331member
    I've had an issue where an app will already be downloaded by another member of the family. When I try to download it, it won't let me and goes into this loop of trying and failing to download. I've had to remove family sharing from my device and download the app on my own, and then reconnect to family sharing. I've noticed a number of people have experienced this as I tried to search for a solution to the problem.
  • Reply 30 of 35
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    genovelle wrote: »
    I think that's how they make sure we aren't just sharing with anyone outside the family. Otherwise what would stop you from just sharing with anyone you just happen to know.

    dewme wrote: »
    Seriously? This would amount to any group of people agreeing to share purchases with no central metering mechanism. So you, your girlfriend, and everyone on your soccer team decide to become a sharing family and app developers take it up the #** on their income? Why would Apple want to screw app developers over like this? I think what they've done is a reasonable compromise.

    They could check the credit cards were registered at the same address. Easy.
  • Reply 31 of 35
    genovellegenovelle Posts: 1,480member
    elijahg wrote: »

    They could check the credit cards were registered at the same address. Easy.

    That would make it easy to share with your whole apartment complex.

    I think the only ones who would have a problem would b those wanting to include people who aren't family. If girlfriend is not close enough
    that you wouldn't want her linked to your card then she isn't family. The idea is to allow you to share with those you would be paying for anyway
    And avoiding paying twice.
  • Reply 32 of 35
    65c81665c816 Posts: 136member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by WisdomSeed View Post



    'Family Sharing' is kind of half baked. It is cool when your kids are little or you have a lot to of money, but my kids are grown (and I am poor). But I have purchased a lot of movies on iTunes, it is my favorite venue for movies, since I have an apple TV. If I wanted to loan out a movie, the way I used to loan out DVD's it doesn't work. My kids want to make their own purchase, but I am not able to let them see movies, TV shows or music that I have purchased and want to share.

    You understand it's not meant for you to share with your *ADULT* kids, right?

  • Reply 33 of 35

    Anyone else had the problem where notifications are locking up devices?  Seems more than a couple of us are having serious issues approving and using Family Sharing. 

     

    "We are having the strangest problem with family sharing.  When my 13 year old daughter, who is set up for Ask To Buy, requests to download an app, or purchase an in-app, my wife and I both receive notifications on our phones and iPads.  However when we try to select them from the notification dropdown screen the phone seems to lock up.  The top bar with the battery and signal strength meters gets dark and looks distorted and nothing works on the phone/ipad.  I can't scroll through the notifications or close the screen.  I can push the home button and get back to the home screen but it freezes there for 10-15 seconds.  The notifications are not availble under the icloud/family sharing menus in settings like there where originally and the only place I can find the notification is in the pull down screen.  Still, touching them freezes the device. 

     

    This behavior is occuring on both of our iphone 6's and both of our iPads.  Everyone is running IOS 8.1.1.  We have four members of Family Sharing (2 adults and 2 kids 13 and 15).  

     

    I have no idea what is going on.  I even removed each of the kids from Family Sharing and just added one back at a time.  Notification behavior was the same.  

     

    I also completly deleted the Family Share and then recreated it.  Still, all notifications freeze the adult devices.  What the heck?"

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/27259046?ac_cid=op123456#27259046 ;

  • Reply 34 of 35



    Why not? If I could share with my mother, why not my adult children? More importantly, why can't I loan them my movies?

  • Reply 35 of 35

    You can set up and use family sharing in iOS 8 using this link.<img class=" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" /> 

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