need itunes help

[master7045]

I am in no way apple smart, I'm going to start there. I have an iphone 3gs b/c its free through work & my wife just purchased a iphone 4 through VZW. I made a lot of purchased via ituns on my laptop w/ my Apple ID and my wife has made a few purchases with her AppleID. From what I can tell, this was our first mistake, having 2 separate AppleIDs. I have now made music purchases on my iphone w/ my AppleID that I would like transfered to my laptop. Everytime I try to sync my music, I get the prompt "The iphone, Matt's iPhone, is synced with another iTunes libraray..." my options are to Erase and Sync or cancel.

I think going forward, I'm going to have my wife use my AppleID since that is where the majority of our purchases are from. She doesn't have any music on her iPhone yet anyway, but she has made iTunes purchases on our laptop w/ her AppleID.

Is there any way I can transfer my new purchases from my iPhone to my laptop? Can I then sync our iTunes library to my wife's iPhone if she is using my AppleID?

Thanks a ton. I think I'm going to switch to WP7.5 when I'm able...

 

[kubani1]

just authorise your computer with your account, then you can sync all your music to your computer.

 

[master7045]

Sorry, forgot to mention that I had already set that up prior to attempting this. I even signed out of my AppleID on my phone and laptop and signed back in on each to make sure the accounts matched up. Still no luck.

 

[kubani1]

that doesn't sound right, i don't know what to say, have you tried to unauthorize your wife's account, i mean, it should automagically do that when you authorize your account, ummmm

otherwise, create new user, upload your music, run all your music through tuneclone to get rid of any copy protection and then move the music around to wherever you like. it would take a long time, but your other option is to call apple and ask what the *$&% is going on.

 

[Kadarin]

Apple really, really needs to provide a mechanism for merging iTunes accounts.

 

[kubani1]

Apple really, really needs to provide a mechanism for merging iTunes accounts.

AMEN

 

[master7045]

Yeah, this sucks. My new plan of attack is to sync my phone w/ my desktop, which doesn't have itunes on it yet. Back everything up, then sync it again on the laptop, which will wipe everything (more than likely, still don't really know what will happen), then merge the two itunes libraries manually. fingers crossed this works....although I'm not holding my breath.

 

[manly]

Yeah, this sucks. My new plan of attack is to sync my phone w/ my desktop, which doesn't have itunes on it yet. Back everything up, then sync it again on the laptop, which will wipe everything (more than likely, still don't really know what will happen), then merge the two itunes libraries manually. fingers crossed this works....although I'm not holding my breath.

not sure what adding yet a 3rd PC to the mix solves.

First off, you should decide which Apple ID to share. As you said, probably your wife's.

When you connect your iPhone to your laptop, you can "Transfer Purchases from iPhone" in the File menu. (As an aside, if you use the latest iTunes in the Cloud, manually copying purchases isn't even necessary.)

With DRM-free iTunes music, I'd assume that means you can copy your own purchased music files to her PC and simply "add to library" in iTunes.

Unfortunately videos and apps have DRM, so in your case, you have to strategically import purchases into her iTunes library. You cannot arbitrarily manually merge iTunes purchases from different Apple IDs (MacRumors claims Apple is still working on it).