Sharing iTunes with multiple iPods

I got an iPhone for Chrimbo (mmm.. shiny!) and my missus already has an iPod Touch, so can someone fill me in on the best way for them both to use iTunes?

A) Should I create a new iTunes account for my iPhone or just use my missus’ existing one?

B) Will bought music and apps be shared between them or only on the one that bought it (and is that affected by the answer to A)?

C) What’s the best way for me to avoid syncing her Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi collections? One of my friends suggested a central ‘shared’ library of music we both like then two different installations of iTunes with our own personal tunes plus the shared library.

There will be lots of people more expert than me with other ideas, but you can select to sync an iPod with a specific playlist, not the whole library.

In iTunes create one playlist for you, and one for the missus. Drag and drop only the stuff you want into your playlist, and same for missus. You then keep one central library but only pull out of it what you want. This is also useful if you have more music in the iTunes library than your iPod holds

As above, we have 3 i-pods in the house each sharing one library but syncing with different playlists.

Yeah I’d heard the playlist approach but that seems like a bit of a faff. Surely Apple, the Gods of Usability, have figured out that multiple people want to use the same iTunes ?!

Apple would probably want you to buy a MacBook per ipod so will not do anything that makes it easy.

I use the multiple playlist thing too.

Hmm.. so how about A) and B) ? Do you lot have separate iTunes accounts for each device or do you just fight over the credit card bill when it arrives?

ahh.. found an Apple article about using multiple iPods on a single computer

Seems you can setup multiple libraries by holding shift while starting iTunes. That’s probably what I want. Would still like to know about A and B though.

We have 2 user log ins on our macbook, so our music is kept separate. My ipod only syncs with my itunes. Same with photos.
Easy as bro.

Yeah, my wife isn’t very keen on having multiple logins for our PC. She likes to just come in and use it regardless of who is logged in, so we just have one user account.

Ah, switching users is only 2 clicks away on a macbook (with no password)

Yeah same on a PC. But she finds it confusing. 🙄

Can you have your library duplicated on 2 pc’s though, as I use different computers depending on where I am? Havent tried copying it yet but is this possible? (Only been using itunes since xmas but did figure out the playlist thing so I don’t get my daughters High School Musical stuff!)

Yes you can put your library on multiple machines – total number of all devices not to exceed 5 if you want them to actually play rather than just store.

Seems to me that keeping more than one library would be a nightmare. Once you have set up your individual playlists, which does take time, you can just decide which new music to add to yours. Also means you only have one library to back up.

I’m running an Iphone, 2x Ipods and 2x shuffles on one computer – it just recognises them as different machines

stevemorg2 – yeah I know it can handle more than one, but how do you control which music/videos/etc gets put on each device and do you have multiple iTunes accounts or do you just pay for it all via one credit card?

Playlists are the simplest, easiest, and most flexible way to do it. Smart playlists (eg genres, or artists etc) mean you don’t have to laboriously set them up track by track.

You can set up each i(whatever) so that it doesn’t automatically synch when you connect it up (I think it’s called manual sync unsurprisingly). That way each user can pull from the central library what they do or don’t want. Me and the kids do this, then I can store everything on one drive, but don’t have to listen to their shite sorry, different taste in music…

All it means is that you have to do a little dragging and dropping…

just had to buy a new computer as the old one crashed and lost every thing, my full library is on my i pod, can i transfer my songs from my i pod to the new computers library?????

you need idump to transfer ipod back to pc then just put them into your new itunes folder

is there no free program to do this?, can get so far then it wants to charge after that.

iLounge[/url] has all the answers.

**** me. vista or XP, LOG ON sepaerate-piece of piss…muppets

Umm yeah thanks snakebite, I did say my wife doesn’t like having a seperate login and that doesn’t answer the other questions. Muppet. Try posting again when you’re sober.