hand me down iPhone and iTunes

[porpoisefull]

DH has just bought an iPhone 4, so that means I could 'inherit' his old iPhone. At the moment we 'share' iTunes on the PC between my iPod and his iPhone, syncing different things which is a bit of a pain. DH is worried that if I plug his old phone back into the computer after he's set the new one up it may mess things up for him. We're thinking of replacing our computer soon anyway so would it be best for me to wait for that...?

Any advice gratefully appreciated

When he connected his iphone 4, did he set it up as a new phone or did he tell it to restore from the old backup (ie 3G/3GS)?

He hasn't done it yet, but he'll want to get all his apps etc. off the computer.

My advice is to connect the phone to the same computer and set it up as a new device on the same iTunes account.

That way he can sync what he likes but at the same time use all the same apps, playlists etc. Then when you plug in the old phone, it will retain those settings which you can then amend manually.

It'll take a few minutes to go through everything but its a one time event so its well worth doing.

Thanks. But how does it work with e.g. apps he bought on his first iPhone? Will he be able to put them on his new phone and would I need to buy them again if I'm using his old phone? Bit confused about how this all works!

Thats why he should associate it with the same account. You can have up to 5 devices per account and they all share the apps. In other words, no need to buy them again.

Don't worry too much about how it all works. That's the beauty of Apple....it just works!

Hmm, but once he's got his new phone up and running, if I then plug his old phone into the computer (presumably I need to get a new SIM first) it will still be associated with his account, won't it? So can I change it to being associated with my iTunes account?

Thanks again for the help.

Yes it will be. And it all depends on what you want to do. If you want to use your own account then don't do the above. But the question is why wouldn't you want to use the same account?

Because if you use another account, you'd have to buy all the apps all over again. I've bought a fair few now and whilst Angry Birds might only be 59p, I'd rather not buy it again when I don't have to.

If you plug in the old phone and associate it with a new account then you will have to start again with apps, music playlists, photos etc etc. That to me is a lot more hassle than just using all your existing set up then deselecting the apps/playlists you don't want.

Ultimately though its up to you.

The only downside I've seen with doing it this way (and bear in mind I have 4 devices set up this way) is when my DD or DS install a new game, it automatically puts it on my phone or vice versa. But I just click on the x to deselect it and its gone.