Suppose you have have 3 family members with iPhones. Do they all sync to one user account? Our do they each sync to their own account?
If the former everyone shares music and apps (up to five devices), but they also share playlists, address books, iTunes accounts, and calendars (unless they sync via Exchange Server to Google). If the latter then everyone has their own stuff, but they also need to have their own movie, music library and app library.
This is a longstanding pain in the butt.
So when I read that iTunes - 9 did something about music sharing decided to install it on a non-media machine.
So when I read that iTunes - 9 did something about music sharing decided to install it on a non-media machine.
Turns out, it does what Apple says:
... With Home Sharing, you can browse the iTunes libraries of up to five authorized computers in your house, import what you like...
So everything is duplicated.
It's a lot like old-style iTunes sharing, except now you can copy.
Not interesting. The old problem remains.
See also:
- Working around iTunes lack of multi-user support
- Sync iTunes Libraries Between Two Macs
- Sharing an iTunes library between multiple users
Update 9/24/09: I upgraded my main library to 9.01 and paid more attention to the language of Home Sharing such as "is for personal use". Note that Home Sharing is for all persons who share the same iTunes account -- which is, in theory, only one person. Apple is walking a fine DRM line here, as they have for many years. They don't target multiple accounts on a single Mac because that represents multiple users, and Home Sharing is really for one user on multiple machines.
