I jumped back into blogging with my previous iTunes Match post after a long blogging drought. Thought it would be prudent to share some experiences of using iOS5 and iCloud on the various devices in my family world.
Some background, I have a Macbook an iPhone and an Apple TV all upgraded to latest versions. The rest of the family have various iPhones, iPods etc and they share the iTunes library and purchases on my iTunes account / Apple ID.
iTunes Account / Apple ID
So the first challenge was how to setup my iCloud account. I had a previous Apple ID which was my long standing hotmail email account. This is the Apple ID I have used for all my iTunes store purchases. I used the ID to activate the iCloud. This gave me access to all the iCloud features except for email. I decided that I wanted everything in one nice shiny Apple pot so added a new me.com email account to my Apple ID. Note if you are a new user with no previous Apple ID, then just create a new Apple ID with a me.com account and happy days.
So, now I have an Apple ID and a linked me.com email account. What I did not realise originally is I can now login to anywhere on Apple using my original hotmail or new me.com email accounts. I have seen lots of forum post regarding requests for the ability to merge these accounts … but as you can log in with either and get all features, not sure why this is required.
Setting up the Macbook, Apple TV and iPhone was simple using the iCloud and my Apple ID:
Now the curious maybe wondering about my hotmail email? Well I made the simple decision to now use my me.com account from now on, I used to love Microsoft, it is now Apple all the way! Now I don’t want to go and change my hotmail account everywhere I have used it so thankfully in hotmail you can configure it to forward your emails to another account – simples.
So now mail, contacts, calendar, reminders, bookmarks, notes, photo stream and device backups synced between Macbook and iPhone using the iCloud, the only difficult bit was migrating my mail, contacts and calendar entries from hotmail to me.com (that is a whole other story). Note: because of all the settings, you can switch on/off any options and continue to use previous providers where required … I was just after a clean break and the complete integrated Apple experience with all devices. One other gotcha was that Apple have got higher requirement for password strength now so some features of the iCloud did not work until I had changed my Apple ID password to include capital letters etc.
Now iTunes Match is here see previous post the iTunes Music library is also now synced into the cloud and shared with my personal devices.
Family Sharing
Ok, what about other family members that also share the family iTunes purchases. Each member has created a new Apple ID/iCloud account with a new me.com email address. They have configured which bits they want to sync with the iCloud, most are continuing to use their hotmail accounts for email / calendar etc, which continues to work without problems.
Now the clever bit, on their devices they can configure a different store account for purchases. They just add my original Apple ID account here and they get all the benefits of the iCloud but still access all the family purchases from the iTunes store, e.g. Apps and Music.
For some more info, see Apple IDs and iCloud.
Now, I am using iTunes Match to share my music between my Macbook, iPhone and Apple TV which is great, but not ideal for sharing with other family members. So the rest of the family continue to sync their chosen playlists with the iTunes library. This can now be done without the need to plug the white cable in, by enabling the Sync over WiFi option:
Home Sharing
For a slight variation on the sharing of music between family members devices, if they have their own PC/Mac, iTunes Home Sharing can be setup so their iTunes instances get access to the master iTunes library on my Macbook. They can then managed their own iTunes library and copy any music from the master that they require. Their devices can now be synced with their own PC/Mac. This has the advantage that they can manage their own iTunes music library instance without the risk of messing mine up, but still access all the shared purchases. They can also add their own music of dubious taste to their own libraries without cluttering mine – perfect.
Calendar Sharing
Finally, a great feature is calendar subscriptions. For both my me.com calendar and the wife’s hotmail calendar there are options to share the calendar. This produces a web link that devices can add as a subscribed calendar.
So for example, I have a personal calendar called home that I have shared with the wife. The wife has shared her hotmail calendar that I have subscribed to. It really is great trying to organise a busy family life when you can instantly see what is going on. You can also subscribe to any other public sports team or event calendars that are available just search google for a relevant iCalendar or ICS, click on the link and subscribe.
