Apple One will manage users with multiple Apple IDs, but questions remain

The newly announced Apple One services bundle could manage users who have multiple Apple IDs for different services, but the exact details of the support are still unclear.

Initially, the iTunes Stores and Apple's cloud services were managed separately. Because of that, users may have different IDs attached to their iCloud and Apple services like Apple Music.

> One such person is Microsoft Senior Cloud Advocate Christina Warren, who brought up the issue in a Tweet on Sept. 15. A day later, Apple's Chris Espinosa responded simply that Apple One "manages that," adding that he double-checked.

It manages that. I just double-checked.
— Chris Espinosa (@cdespinosa) September 17, 2020

Espinosa was one of Apple's first employees and helped pioneer the Family sharing feature, which deals with multiple Apple IDs. Of course, Espinosa's answer was fairly short on detail, so it isn't entirely clear what he means just yet.

Some Apple One tier, by their nature as a shared service, will allow support for multiple Apple IDs. Whether or not Apple will allow multiple IDs to be consolidated into a single account, or whether they'll take up additional "slots" on an Apple One plan, remains to be seen.

Apple One — announced at Apple's "Time Flies" event — bundles various Apple services together at different but lower price tiers, allowing users to save money on multiple subscriptions.

20 Comments

j2fusion 153 comments · 13 Years

About 4 years ago

I hope this is true as I have separate IDs for the iTunes Store and iCloud. I tried to get them consolidated years ago but no luck. Fingers crossed.

Beats 3073 comments · 4 Years

Use ONE account guys! Why do you make it so hard on yourselves?

netrox 1494 comments · 12 Years

Beats said:

Use ONE account guys! Why do you make it so hard on yourselves?

Because they may have already signed up for an old service and Apple offered a new service which required a different account?

davidmalcolm 402 comments · 9 Years

Family sharing is the way to deal with this.

mike1 3427 comments · 10 Years

Beats said:

Use ONE account guys! Why do you make it so hard on yourselves?

Not so simple for those of us who have been doing this for a while and have families. Back when there was only iTunes and iPods, you only needed one iTunes account. The whole family could rip their CDs, buy songs, manage their playlists and then plug their iPod into the computer and get only their music.That one account was all you needed. Kind of like having a telephone landline with a single phone number that everyone shared.

As the iPhone was introduced and things evolved and each user started to need their own account, Apple still let you use a different account e-mail for iTunes content. Each person could have their own iCloud (or predecessor) account and still have access to all the content they purchased over the years.