Apple One fails to solve issues with multiple Apple IDs

Apple One does include one option for helping users manage multiple Apple IDs for iCloud storage, but doesn't resolve the long-standing problems, and does add to the confusion.

Some Apple users have different Apple IDs for their iCloud accounts and their App Store and Services subscriptions. That's because Apple's cloud-based services and its iTunes-related subscriptions were initially separate.

Back in September, Apple employee Chris Espinosa said that Apple One "manages" situations like these. Since the debut of the bundled service on Friday, it appears that it mitigates the issue but doesn't solve it.

During the Apple One sign-up process, users will be prompted with the option to associate their included Apple One storage with the Apple ID that they currently use for iCloud. That means users will get the amount of storage included with Apple One on their iCloud Apple IDs, and the initial iCloud storage plan will be cancelled (though their data will remain intact). The other bundled Apple One services will be associated with a user's primary iTunes/App Store ID.

Of course, this solution doesn't involve consolidation or merging of accounts. It only does away with one problem of having a separate Apple ID for iCloud and the App Store and iTunes.

Users are also given the option to keep their Apple One iCloud storage associated with their primary iTunes and App Store account. In these cases, the storage for each account will be handled separately.

At least one Twitter user said that they chose to use their iTunes/App Store account for the included Apple One storage. When they did, it auto-cancelled their iCloud Apple ID storage plan. After that, all of the data in that storage reportedly showed up on their Apple One account.

I have the same. When I selected that I wanted to switch to Apple One iCloud storage it auto cancelled my iCloud account storage plan and all the data I had in that storage just showed up on my Apple One account iCloud storage.
— Phil Kehoe (@orazio1227) October 30, 2020

AppleInsider can't verify if this is common, and couldn't reproduce it ourselves. It could simply be a case of a user's device uploading its data to iCloud on a new plan instead of an actual transferal of data from one Apple ID to another.

While the options here will help users with multiple Apple IDs actually sign up for the service, it's far from the easy account merging or consolidation that users have been asking for.

The need to merge Apple IDs is a real thing that should have been fixed a long time ago. https://t.co/1435liE962
— Scott Edwards (@scotchua) October 30, 2020

Update: Since publication of this article, AppleInsider was able to confirm through sources within Apple that merging two separate Apple IDs is still not possible.

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43 Comments

rwes 200 comments · 11 Years

About 4 years ago

w00t! I currently subscript to 2TB Storage with 1 id for iCloud and 1 for App Store/etc. I was eager to try it today, but I wasn't going to be the first one. Thank you for sharing! I can move forward somewhat comfortably now knowing it's kinda solved. Agree though that merging would be amazing!

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

Never understood the need or desire for multiple Apple IDs. I have had the same, single Apple ID since day one. To this day users login to their iPhone or Mac with a different Apple ID than the one they used to purchase music or videos and wonder why that content is not showing up. The bitching is constant.

cpsro 3232 comments · 14 Years

I was given no such option to switch from iCloud storage to One. And now with 4 TB shown as available, I see no storage subscription to cancel. I've only ever used one AppleID for App Store purchases, iCloud and subscriptions. (I only need a little over 1 TB.)

MJG33 10 comments · 4 Years

lkrupp said:

Never understood the need or desire for multiple Apple IDs. I have had the same, single Apple ID since day one. To this day users login to their iPhone or Mac with a different Apple ID than the one they used to purchase music or videos and wonder why that content is not showing up. The bitching is constant.

Same here. I've been using iTunes since it originally came out; I had iPods before iPhones existed. I was already on iPhones when the App Store came into existence and I used my existing iTunes account for that, and later for me.com -> iCloud for email and everything else that came to be for services. There was never a time like the article states, "That's because Apple's cloud-based services and its iTunes-related subscriptions were initially separate."

That said, I trust that people have other reasons (either legitimately or due to poor information, etc.) for holding separate accounts in the past and are now stuck with assets in each of them that need to be merged.

llama 104 comments · 16 Years

lkrupp said:

Never understood the need or desire for multiple Apple IDs. I have had the same, single Apple ID since day one. To this day users login to their iPhone or Mac with a different Apple ID than the one they used to purchase music or videos and wonder why that content is not showing up. The bitching is constant.

The ones I have seen are "older" Mac users that started using iTunes with a normal email account and then down the road set up a MobileMe/iCloud account later when those things existed. It was 5 years between iTunes and MobileMe launches with many switching over to the snazzy new domains for those services. If people not new enough to have gotten sucked into the new Apple domains and just forked their accounts with personal domains, well, then they don't make any sense to me.