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Comment by VerifiedReports | Hacker News Reader

And yet Apple CREATED the multiple-accounts problem for millions of people by implementing their idiotic "Apple ID must be an E-mail address" policy.

So of course people thought that when they changed jobs, cable companies, or whatever... they needed to create a new Apple ID with their new E-mail address. This was reinforced when Apple further stupidified their policy by requiring your ID to be a WORKING E-mail address (originally it didn't actually have to work).

After the outcry over people's App Store and other purchases being scattered across multiple IDs, Apple finally publicly and huffily declared that they weren't going to fix the problem they created by letting people consolidate accounts.

The moral: Don't force people to use E-mail addresses as user IDs. It's stupid on several levels.

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> Apple finally publicly and huffily declared that they weren't going to fix the problem they created by letting people consolidate accounts.

They somewhat changed that. It now is possible to move purchases between accounts. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/117294. Looks quite cumbersome to do, and will not apply to everybody (“If an Apple Account is only used for making purchases, those purchases can be migrated to a primary Apple Account to consolidate them.”, “This feature isn’t available to users in India.”)

It's not super difficult if you have an Apple ID from many years ago that you bought media with and then have a different Apple ID that you use for everything. Which isn't that uncommon for anyone who used iTunes and bought music or media and then forgot their ID and just made a new one when they got a iPhone or Macbook. Was able to transfer all my purchases to my main account pretty easily.

The real downside is if you have two fully active Apple IDs. Then things like calendars, photos, email, etc are still stuck on the other account until you export it. Which can be a pain since you have to sign out of your main account, sign into the old account and export, then sign back into the main account.

What's weird, and I'm not sure if it's a documented or undocumented feature, but the account I am logged into on the App Store differs from the one logged into on the system. The system Apple ID is setup with Family Sharing, and the users are able to use apps purchased with the secondary Apple ID.

I haven't transferred the purchases or anything either. The two Apple IDs have different purchases on them, and those on Family Sharing are able to access both.

Interesting. But WTF is a "primary" Apple account? My original Apple ID isn't an E-mail address, so they forced me (and others in that situation) to create another one for iCloud because that one inexplicably has to be an E-mail address.

I use both for quite a few things. Which one is "primary?"

That text is badly written. They define that after mentioning it:

“At the time of migration, the Apple Account signed in for use with iCloud and most features on your iPhone or iPad will be referred to as the primary Apple Account.

At the time of migration, the Apple Account signed in just for use with Media & Purchases will be referred to as the secondary Apple Account.”

⇒ apparently you can be signed into multiple accounts at the same time ¿but I guess with only one account per feature?

But as I said, that page is badly written. So, maybe I’m understanding it wrong.

Thanks for the clarification.

Yes... because of the mess Apple made, I am always signed into two accounts. My non-E-mail one for all purchases, and the E-mail one for iCloud.

> of course people thought that when they changed jobs, cable companies, or whatever... they needed to create a new Apple ID with their new E-mail address.

This belief is rampant amongst 90% of the general public. I had to spend an hour helping a friend last week who had created a new Cash App account to do their taxes, because they didn't prefer the old email address that was on their longstanding Cash App account. So now they have to keep 2 Cash App accounts forever. And to make things more fun, they're obsessed with phone numbers there, so adding the phone to the second account pulls it off the other account.

Oh, and digression but I have to vent: their login process on the web is, in some order: an SMS to your phone, another numeric to your email, and your password. All in succession, on every login.

Thanks for the anecdote backing up my longstanding suspicion on that.

This is also why using E-mail addresses as user IDs is monumentally stupid: People will think that they need to use their E-mail password, too. So now any entity with this ID policy becomes a gatekeeper not only to their own site or service, but the user's E-mail account.

One poor security regime or disgruntled employee at one obscure Web site can now enable identity theft on a grand scale, by exposing E-mail addresses and passwords.

There's a reason that banks and brokerages don't employ this ignorant policy. It's disappointing that Apple set such a poor example by implementing it. Then they had to run around trying to mitigate the harm with 2FA and other measures, after high-profile "hacking" attacks on journalists and celebs.

It’s also a huge pain for those of us who might regularly visit or live part of the year in another country.

I basically need two Apple IDs because switching the region for your App Store is very inconvenient if you have any subscriptions.

In the end, I have separate Apple IDs for each country.

And Apple won't let you add all your "trusted phone numbers" to all those accounts. So, if you are in country A and your country B phone can't receive SMSs, and you get a new device, you can't log into country B account because 2FA via SMS does not work. (And no, you can't just make multiple accounts on a MacBook or other device that supports multiple accounts for non-SMS 2FA; login fails.)

Pff, Apple can't even keep your contacts intact if you go abroad.

I traveled to Australia and got a local SIM. Suddenly every incoming call was from an unknown caller, even though every one was in my address book. Apple is too stupid to handle international calling in the 2020s. I mean... WTF?

Then again, this is the same company that "helpfully" changes all your calendar appointment times when you travel to a different time zone... with NO WAY TO PREVENT IT. So if you go east, you're going to miss any events you set up in advance... including flights home.

> And yet Apple CREATED the multiple-accounts problem for millions of people by implementing their idiotic "Apple ID must be an E-mail address" policy.

Ironically they then relented only for India and China because market share too sweet, so all auth developers now need to update the assumption that Apple auth users have an email address. Worst of both worlds :)

I help someone to setup Apple ID. His email address is already taken by someone else and user ID with that email cannot be created.

Maybe in the 90's before Gmail came about so everyone still used their university or ISP email accounts.

Hotmail came in the mid 90s, Yahoo Mail followed soon, I don't think Apple was cloudy at all back then.

I suppose those mail services were "cloud"...

Not sure what this is replying to...

> So of course people thought that when they changed jobs, cable companies, or whatever... they needed to create a new Apple ID with their new E-mail address.

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