The Apple ID Shuffle

Those of us who have been in the Apple ecosystem for a long time typically have two Apple IDs, one that harkens back from their original iTunes account and another that is now their iCloud account. If you’re a real old-timer like me that iCloud account can trace its lineage back to .Mac, the predecessor to the infamous MobileMe, which was the predecessor to iCloud.

I listen to a number of tech podcasts where the hosts have a similar dual Apple ID setup, and they have all mentioned a weird bug here and there that they believe may be caused by this situation. In software development we refer to uncommon scenarios as “edge cases” and as time goes on my fear is that having these dual accounts puts me in an ever shrinking population and a lower priority for Apple.

The final straw was when I tried to add an Apple gift card in my Wallet app which resulted in an error message telling me this wasn’t possible when with iCloud and App Store accounts that aren’t the same. I figured now is a good a time as any to rip the bandaid off and make my iCloud Apple ID my only Apple ID.

Here is some guidance for anyone considering trying this.

Subscriptions

I had three active subscriptions under my old Apple ID, the most expensive of which was Apple One. I set all of them to not auto-renew and I created a new Apple One subscription with my iCloud Apple ID. New subscribers get a free month, so I actually came out ahead.

Music

I wasn’t at all concerned about my old iTunes music purchases not being available in my iCloud Apple ID. I’ve been using streaming for music for eight years now and don’t ever see myself going back to buying individual songs.

Unfortunately after switching I had to start my Apple Music profile over from scratch to teach it my tastes. I spent an hour tapping the “Love” button for all of my favorite songs in an attempt to retrain it on what I like.

One positive side effect of going to a clean slate is that my (now ex) wife and I used to share my iTunes account and she purchased some music that doesn’t align with my tastes. Now I no longer have to worry about random Dixie Chicks tracks in my Favorites playlist.

Movies

The largest investment I made with my old iTunes Apple ID was in movies. I was often confronted with the “should I rent this movie or will I watch should I just buy it?” choice and landed on “buy” more often than I should have. Pro tip: unless you are constantly rewatching your favorite movies, always rent when you can. Over the long run you’ll save money (it’s a similar principle to never buying extended warrantees).

I subscribe to all of the big streaming services but that doesn’t give me access to all movies in the same way that I have access to all music. The film studios all have complicated licensing deals that often don’t allow them to stream their films on their own streaming service. The only major exception is Disney+ which seems to have a near-complete catalog of their movies.

However thanks to Movies Anywhere, there is an easy solution. I connected my old iTunes Apple ID to this service, which allows me to access all of my purchased movies on other services too, including YouTube.

Apps

It’s surprising to me that almost all of the apps that I use on iOS are either free (e.g. first party Apple apps, social media, etc) or subscription (e.g. Overcast), so thus far I haven’t had to re-buy any of those.

My Mac is a different story, as I use several paid apps there. Many of these apps aren’t from the Mac App Store and therefore not tied to my old Apple ID.

For those Mac apps that I did purchase through the App Store (e.g. Pastebot) there’s actually a simple solution: I created a new user account on my Mac configured with my old Apple ID. Now if I want to download any apps that I purchased with my old account I just switch to that user and open the App Store. Aren’t multi-user operating systems great?

Was it worth it?

Yes it was. So far it hasn’t cost me anything to make this switch (your mileage may vary) and I was able to add my gift card to my Apple Wallet. Going forward I suspect that I will encounter fewer bugs, random Apple ID verification prompts and replays of “Wide Open Spaces.”