“MacRumors has learned that Apple is working on a process to merge multiple Apple IDs into a single login. The issue of juggling multiple Apple ID logins has been a minor inconvenience in the past, but with the early developer testing of iOS 5 and iCloud, users have found it to be a major issue,” Arnold Kim reports for MacRumors.
“MacRumors reader Robert emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook about the issue, and quickly received a phone call from an Apple executive relations employee. She had spoken to the team responsible for Apple IDs and acknowledged that they understood the issue and that more people would run into the problem with iCloud,” Kim reports. “She also repeated that there is no way yet to combine accounts but revealed they are working on it. In the meantime, she recommended picking a single account to plan on keeping indefinitely and to make all future purchases on that account.”
Read more in the full article here.
Oh let this be true!
My old appleid has many things tied to it.. And then I get a MobileMe account, and apple creates another ID “for me” and makes me keep the old email address JUST for my appleid..
This is welcome news for many.
This has been my single largest disappointment with Apple. I had an AppleID for iTunes and the Apple Store, but when .Mac came around I ended up with another. My original AppleID email address was lost after years when a domain shut down, so I now have a Gmail address solely for my original Apple ID since I can’t use my .Mac address. I have had this conversation with Apple on the phone as I am sure many, many people have. I heard there was something, perhaps in Sarbanes-Oxley, preventing Apple from tying the accounts together for bookkeeping reasons. As they transition to a free email address service, iCloud, this accounting limitation may go away.
same things here… same phone call.
About a decade ago Apple consolidated their logins into a single AppleID. Then .Mac came along and we were able to merge it into our AppleID. Then MobileMe came and we were automatically given a me.com address in addition to mac.com. You folks must have missed an early merge somewhere along Apple’s online/mobile expansion because it was definitely possible.
This is a pain. I have several companies with an account for each. Making sense of placing content on mobile devices is permutationally irrational.
Very un-Apple. Just what I told AppleCare last week.
This would be great. Please apple, make it work!
I think I may be ok, I have two, one is a mobile me address which I just use for mobile me, the other is a regular email that pre-dates my use of .mac/mobile me and is what I use for all my purchases. With mobile me going I should be able to just dump mobile me, but it was always a pain, I can only imagine how hard it would be for others.
Excellent. Now my two Apple IDs, s.ballmer@microsoft.com and s.ballmer@me.com can be merged into one. Just like merging two nuts into one.
“Just like merging two nuts into one” SACK.
They really need to fix this, what was just annoying before iCloud is going to quickly become a royal pain the the rear – I have and old apple ID with my pre-mobile me email account that has probably 50% of all purchased media on it – even if they allow you a one-time consolidation of accounts to one surviving account, that would be awesome!
This would solve so many headaches, especially with my family who have multiple apple id’s and complain that it is too confusing.
I had a yahoo account for itunnes and a mobile me account and i sent an email abouta year ago requesting merging of account and apple did it now i use my me.com for everything
This is a great idea. With facetime requiring a separate apple ID/email for each device, I have so many Apple ID’s I can’t keep them straight any more.
I have FaceTime on a few devices and I use 1 I’d on them all. They all ring at the same time but it works fine
Interesting. So if my wife was on my MacBook Pro at home and I attemtped to facetime with her on my iPod touch from another location, can we use the same ID to talk with one another?
But what about divorce?
There’s a whole generation of kids growing up today who are going to have to use their ex’s Apple ID until they day they die so they don’t have to buy all their apps & albums again.
Will the new wife mind if we have to keep using my jennyAndChris4evr@gmail.com Apple ID?
Not if your new wife’s name is Jenny.
About time!
Oh, I hope so! Inadvertently having two (or more) Apple IDs is a pain. In my case I have two, one consisting of my full email address, and another consisting of just my email username. I’m sure I did it, but I have no idea how or when. It was just some kind of dumb accident. Please Apple, let me merge those two accounts!
If true, would be a great day.
It’s all about lawyers… record company lawyers. They want each user id to buy their own record .. err.. track
This is not a rumor. I contacted apple(via online live chat) to complaint about this issue. He(she) said we’ll be able to merge multiple accounts into single account when iCloud becomes available. Apple is not stupid. They know what the issue is.
My multiple MM accounts also have quite a number of email addresses associated with them. I would hope Apple would let them all merge even if it were at odds with any new protocols. Those of us who paid Apple more for these accounts for some years should not be penalized. Instead, Apple should recognize its good customers by making the coming transition fully painless.