[kmgdc]

Have 1 apple id for my partner and I. Always worked well...since we've had it long before family sharing when it was a .mac account. We share everything (contacts, calendars, photos, music, apps, icloud storage, etc.) and want to keep it that way. iMessage works because we log out and the iMessage is associated with our telephone number and not the apple id.

Enter 2 apple watches...no phone number to identify us. Only hardcoded apple id that the watch gets from the phone. Each watch is paired to a separate iPhone. But our digital touch is now confused as it's only connected via the apple id. I thought I could change to have the watch use a separate apple id for each of us, and then we would be good to go...but can't. Off phone with a senior Apple support person and she wants me to move to separate iCloud account and do family sharing and what not. That not only is a lot of work but always going to cause lots of issues and we won't be able to share data and find my iphone and everything as simply as we do now.

Long story short, looks like I will have to wait till Apple decides to allow digital touch login to a different apple id (like they did for iMessage and Facetime). Any ideas? Going to post a feature request...but would love to hear someone else thoughts (or pains as well).

[kch50428]

Setting up FamilyShare really isn't difficult at all... at least it wasn't for me...

[Bigeric23]

This is just my humble opinion (not necessarily correct), but I don't like the idea of sharing my Apple ID, not even with my wife or children.

[crynus1]

I'm having the same issue. My wife and share the same Apple ID to share contacts, photos,apps etc. family share is a good idea but doesn't work as well as the same ID does for us now. Is there a place to call to request a feature change to make it work like iMessage?

The haptic feedback and touch were one of the main reasons we both got the watch

[ldubbe]

I am having a similar issue. We set up a apple id before family sharing. Now I have a watch, and when i use digital touch it shows his phone number not me as the contact on the other watch.

[Ledsteplin]

My wife and I share the iTunes ID. But we have separate iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime ID's. Apparently that set up won't work with the Apple Watch. A Family Sharing will have to be set up.


Sent from my ancient but trustworthy iPhone 5. ☮

[kmgdc]

Sorry never saw these. Update here...I got this to work. Just need to sign out of iMessage and FaceTime. I was just signed out of iMessage. FaceTime it seems is used for digital touch. So as long as all phones don't sign into iMessage and FaceTime (and instead use the phone number as the ID) you are ok. Btw another reason I like only 1 Apple ID is apple music is easier/cheaper....

[skyvoyage]

This method worked for me. Thank you so much! We were about to return our watches because the benefits of using one Apple ID far outweighed the benefits of the watch. Thank you, thank you, thank you kmgdc!!!

[msobrevia]

But with this method you can't use FaceTime nor iMessage anymore?