iTunes is the must have app for all digital media lovers, it plays musics, videos, podcasts, audiobooks, online radios and the iTunes store is one stop shopping for all the above and that include the App Store. When iPhone is announced, iTunes is the only software to manage contents on it, it lets you synchronized contacts, calendars, emails, musics, videos, podcasts, audiobooks and also store your purchased applications in a separate section.
Apart from some people who don’t know that iPhone has an App Store, with more than 140.000 apps available, a lot more don’t know that they can share and authorize a single iTunes account with up to 5 computers to let them play or view or install items purchased from the iTunes store (and that also include apps from the App Store).
What does it mean? It means that if you have other members from your family or friends, you can share your purchases with them (it includes musics, videos and also iPhone apps), that’s right, you can do that.
First thing you need to do, authorize the computer which going to be used. In iTunes, go to “Store” menu and select “Authorize Computer“. Next, you can transfer the media files from your portable drives or backup discs and drag those files to the iTunes library. There’s an easier way for sharing applications, but you need to be sure that the one you are going to share it with will let you know before they make any purchases using your account. A good practice is to never share your username and password with others, especially if you use the same password for most of your accounts, but if you don’t mind, you can use a different password for the iTunes account and share it with them. With the given login credentials, they can download the apps that you have purchased themselves (as long as they know you have purchased it previously, otherwise as I’ve said before, you should really trust them for not making purchases as they want).
Apple have the policy to let users re-download the apps you’ve purchased previously, just in case you don’t have any backups. Your family members or friends can click or tap “Buy” from the App Store for the app you’ve already purchased and iTunes will know you’ve owned it before (as shown in the image below) and let you download it for free.
By doing this, it even makes apps and other media purchases a lot cheaper than ever. For example, if you have 4 other family members that use an iPhone, a $10 app shared to all members would cost $2 on each, it gets even better if you like to purchase more expensive apps, say, navigation app like TomTom, $60-70, it would cost $12-14 if shared to all, even if only shared with just 1-2 members, it is definitely a steal. So, go grab yourself more apps from the App Store and continue to support the developers for creating the amazing apps.
A little thing to remember, if you plan to switch computers or format and reinstall the operating system, don’t forget to “Deauthorize Computer” by going to the “Store” menu in iTunes as mentioned above. You can view how many computers are already authorized by going to your iTunes account details, by clicking the “Apple ID” on top right in iTunes Store (or “Sign In” button to view your account details).
If you have reached the limit of 5 computers, a “Deauthorize All” button will appear on the right side, but there’s a catch, you can only use this feature once a year (as stated in Apple Support Documentation). If you happen to need to use this feature again within the 12 months period, you can always send an email to iTunes Support.
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just sharing…
i bought and account with $50 and purchased up to $300 for free. But i did mistake. I purchased too many movies. And now, for the consequence i made, i have to wait for days to finish the download. This isn’t include the pre order movies i bought. well with my average speed, it will cost me a month to finish all the mess. i made.
Ok. enough for the purchase sharing. i have a question about THE RIGHT OF SHARING.
this is the case.
i had friend. He hasn’t a mac nor using itunes. He looked for an music album and didn’t find it in local store. One day he found it in i-store while using my macbook. He asked me to buy the album and offer me the money (the amount he gave is the same with the have to pay).
So i downloaded it from i-storef from my account. Now, logically, the mp3 i downloaded is legal. BUT
1. if i copy it to my friend who already paid me to buy the album, isn’t illegal?
2. If it is illegal or violate the law, then, how could people like him have the music from i-store, LEGALLY ?
3. Solution?
thanks, mate.
oh, your iphone review for mms helped me alot !!!
hi christian,
it's similar to the issue whether one should be allowed to create a dvd backup of the dvd they own or not. There's still no absolute black and white about this matter, but if you happen to purchase DRM Free from iTunes store, I probably just delete the album from my iTunes library after I gave it to my friend.
you mentioned that he found the album while browsing using your macbook, so why not ask him to install iTunes on his computer and create an account, so he can browse and make the purchases in the future himself, not that hard I suppose.
cheers