Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another • Hacker News Board

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#51

Post by cacatooi » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #23

sails01 wrote: post #14

Now it would be great if Apple allowed associating more than one country for my purchases to my apple id, i.e. based on having credit cards issued by banks in different countries. Seems that for Apple does not exist the concept of living between to countries (expats, dual citizens, etc)

Media (music, film, TV, app) content licenses are country specific. Apple is relatively good about providing global access to purchased content. Amazon alters the list of available titles based on client IP/VPN geolocation. Some streaming vendors entirely block client devices based on IP/VPN geolocation.

baby shark

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#52

Post by euroderf » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 7:32 PM UTC

AnonC wrote: post #12

I’ve been one of those people with one account for media, purchases and subscriptions and another one for iCloud. The purchases account, referred to as secondary in this document, is shared with family members (i.e., they use this same account and credentials for purchases too). Family members in turn have their own individual iCloud accounts. I’ve never tried doing Family Sharing with this setup because it seemed co…

> I’ve never tried doing Family Sharing with this setup because it seemed confusing — it wants to use the iCloud account as the primary one whereas I’ve always added credit to the purchases account (taking advantage of some Apple Store Code discount offers).

I'm deep in the Apple ecosystem and yet this - what you speak of - is precisely why I will never try to really exercise any Apple software.

The company finds it impossible to do anything as simple and helpful as draw a system diagram of (say) laptop, phone, cloud, and their mirrorings, and their backups one to another, and their basic interactions.

To take the most obvious example, the precise workings of iTunes - even at the level of user visibility - were always a mystery, and shall always remain so, even in their subsequent reincarnations.

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#53

Post by Krasnol » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #22

Krasnol wrote: post #13

Is this just an advertisement, or do I miss the techy/interesting part which usually justifies posts on this platform?

> techy/interesting part https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020838

I wouldn't have posted that if their solution/workaround had been the post.

This post, though...pure ad.

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#54

Post by walterbell » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 7:47 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #53

walterbell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> techy/interesting part https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020838

I wouldn't have posted that if their solution/workaround had been the post. This post, though...pure ad.

It has been a pain point for 20 years, with no official solution until now. No techy workaround can beat Apple eliminating the longstanding inconvenience.

Apple should publish a blog post on why it took 20 years to fix :)

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#55

Post by walterbell » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 10:14 PM UTC

goosedragons wrote: post #41

walterbell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android/GrapheneOS allows multiple profiles per phone. Apple could do the same, with sufficient internal or external motivation.

Yeah but then maybe families will maybe only buy one iPad instead of maybe buy multiple so it's not happening.

Apple can charge $$$ for each extra profile:

  - earn high margin revenue with low input costs
  - save planetary raw materials 
  - save customer time, energy and space costs
  - improve customer security via data segregation
  - increase per-device storage revenue

As AI advocates say, more efficiency leads to larger markets.

Ignoring customer needs via artificial inefficiency leads to stagnant growth.

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#56

Post by walterbell » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 10:20 PM UTC

aikinai wrote: post #36

qingcharles wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always keep two sets of Apple devices with separate accounts for this reason :( Some apps are country specific. My banking app wasn't available in the USA app store, so that alone meant I had to keep a separate iPhone.

You can log out of your US account in App Store, login with your other country account, download the app, then log out and log back in to your US account. It will maintain authentication for some time and let you update the app, but eventually it expires. Then you get the sketchiest dialog box ever randomly when doing anything on your phone: “If you have an Apple ID, enter the password” What it actually means to say…

> What it actually means to say is..

Good use case for Apple Intelligence: pick the best customer-authored translation of incoherent error messages and display in an optional overlay.

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#57

Post by genewitch » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 10:51 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #39

sails01 wrote: post #14

Now it would be great if Apple allowed associating more than one country for my purchases to my apple id, i.e. based on having credit cards issued by banks in different countries. Seems that for Apple does not exist the concept of living between to countries (expats, dual citizens, etc)

And other idiots that live in continent sized countries and don't realize that in Europe it's very easy to cross borders. Sony, I'm looking at you... Hey, did you know that Apple discovered that they can allow you to select multiple languages simultaneously for the spell checker? When? In iOS 18... Like, for example, Belgium hasn't existed since iOS 1 (they use at least 3 languages currently there, as far as I know).

Sony is a Japanese company and I've always thought of japan as a relatively small country. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#58

Post by nottorp » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 5:36 AM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #57

nottorp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And other idiots that live in continent sized countries and don't realize that in Europe it's very easy to cross borders. Sony, I'm looking at you... Hey, did you know that Apple discovered that they can allow you to select multiple languages simultaneously for the spell checker? When? In iOS 18... Like, for example, Belgium hasn't existed since iOS 1 (they use at least 3 languages currently there, as far as I know).

Sony is a Japanese company and I've always thought of japan as a relatively small country. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Japan isn't that small (especially population wise) and besides when the playstation comes in the news there's an english sounding name attached to them.

Also even without the anglosphere management they're an island and crossing a border is ... complex ... for them :)

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#59

Post by lo_fye » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 1:59 PM UTC

I tried to do it last night, and it said one of my accounts was ineligible. Didn't say which one, or why it was ineligible. I got on a live chat with Apple Support... for 2 hours. Surprisingly, the dude had already been very very trained on the ins and outs of the migration process. He knew everything.

You can’t migrate purchases if both of your accounts have Apple Music libraries. This is minor, as you can get around it by simply deleting everything out of the primary (aka non-purchasing) account. He did know that it will also migrate iTunes Match, though, which I had been worried about since it's not mentioned in any of the support documents, and it doesn't even show up in my subscription list. He said they include iTunes Match as part of Apple Music itself, so it's not listed separately.

The MUCH bigger deal (especially if you use Family Sharing) is that you cannot have shared your iCloud storage more than 1 other account. Well, I have a wife, 2 kids, and my purchases account. The only way around this is for me to disband my “Family”, then do the migration, then re-create my family… BUT it’s not that easy, because kids MUST be in a family. SO, first my wife has to create a Family. Then I disband my Family and transfer the kids to hers, where she’s the organizer, not me. Then I do the migration. Then I rejoin the family, but she hates tech, so I need to be the organizer, so then she has to leave her own Family, which will make me the organizer by default. Then she can join back. Then we should be ok… except that during that whole time they will have zero iCloud storage (it’s all on my account), and no access to our subscriptions (all on my account), and no access to family shared apps… AND if anything goes wrong, we’re in a huge effing mess.

Oh, and I forgot to ask if or how it would affect our Photos library, where my wife and I each have a private library, but also share a library with 150k photos and videos in it.

Re: Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another

#60

Post by mh- » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

lo_fye wrote: post #59

I tried to do it last night, and it said one of my accounts was ineligible. Didn't say which one, or why it was ineligible. I got on a live chat with Apple Support... for 2 hours. Surprisingly, the dude had already been very very trained on the ins and outs of the migration process. He knew everything. You can’t migrate purchases if both of your accounts have Apple Music libraries. This is minor, as you can get aroun…

You basically described my account/family topology, and my concerns, to a tee. This sounds messy and I think I'm on the wrong side of the risk vs reward curve for now, perhaps I'll revisit in another year or two.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.