Family Sharing

The Tour de France, a summer tradition since 1903 (except for the years during WWI and WWII,) is almost upon us again. The 2018 Tour de France runs from Saturday, July 7, through Sunday, July 29, and will cover 3,351 kilometers broken up into 21 stages. Le Tour fans are preparing to watch the annual bike race, and many are wondering how they can watch their favorite teams live, without cable, on their Apple TVs. To catch all the coverage we're hoping for, we'll need to know the Tour de France schedule, who's providing Tour de France TV coverage, and which streaming providers offer that network. Let's get started collecting all the information we need so we're ready for Tour de France 2018! 

You've already signed up for Apple's Family Sharing, and are the designated organizer for your Family Group. As family organizer, you've learned how to set up Apple IDs for your kids and use the Ask to Buy feature to manage what they purchase in iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store. You've figured out how to access and download shared content from your Family Group through Family Sharing: music, movies, books, apps, the whole works. You even know how to hide your media selections that are too mature from your kids, and keep their less desirable (I'm looking at you, Demi Lovato) choices from your own devices. But the holidays bring a new layer of Apple Family Sharing questions with them, and one question in particular: how do you use an iTunes gift card on a Family Sharing account? Furthermore, how do you make sure the person who received the iTunes gift card is the person who redeems it? How can you check the gift card balance so that you don't start running up charges on your credit card once it's spent? So many questions, so little time before your kids will want to start spending their gift cards from grandma. Let's get started learning how to manage iTunes gift cards in Family Sharing!  

There are a few different ways to leave a Family Sharing group, however, there are some rules you should be aware of before doing so. This tip will show you how easy it is to leave a Family Sharing group, then tell you about Apple's Family Sharing stipulations.

There are various ways to share Kindle books. With friends, you can loan ebooks out for a couple weeks. But if you set up Family Sharing with Amazon, you can share Kindle books with family members easily and with fewer limitations. When you share Kindle books, the recipient can read the Kindle book you lend them via the Kindle app on iPhone or iPad, as well as Kindle devices, including Kindle Fire. Kindle family sharing allows two adults to create an Amazon Household with up to four children. The two adults in your Kindle family must have separate Amazon accounts. However, setting up family sharing and sharing Kindle books with your Amazon Household is actually quite straightforward. We’ll go over how to set up Family Sharing on Amazon, how to share Kindle books with that family, how to access content shared with you via Amazon Kindle family sharing, and how to leave an Amazon Household should you need to in the future. Here’s everything you need to know about how to share Kindle books with family members.

I love using my Calendar app to keep track of my family's schedule. It can only be so helpful, though, when I'm the only one using it. Having a shareable family calendar means that we can all be on the same page—all the time. The family calendar just might be my favorite feature of Family Sharing! Here’s how to add an event to your family calendar on iPhone.

Location services on iPhone allows your apps to do all kinds of things, such as give you directions from your Current Location to your destination or track your jogging route with gps. You can also choose the specific apps that have access to your location information so you aren’t wasting battery or giving away more privacy than you need to. While location services on iPhone is pretty fundamental to a lot of the available functions, you can choose to turn off location services altogether. Whether you decide to turn location services on or off is entirely up to you and how you use your iPhone—we’ll go over both. Here’s how to turn location services on or off on iPhone.

The best part of Apple Family Sharing is... sharing! After setting up your Family Group, you can get to sharing all of your content including iTunes purchases like apps, music, TV shows, and movies, as well as books from the iBooks store (well, except for the content that's hidden.) I love sharing music with my boys, but don't care to have any of their apps on my phone. With this tip you can use Family Sharing to share everything you want to and download none of what you don't. Here’s how to access and download shared purchases with Family Sharing.

Though I love the idea of sharing an iTunes, iBooks, and App Store account with my family (who really wants to have to purchase the same song three times so everyone in the house can have it?), the job of setting up your Family Sharing account can be daunting. Here's a quick tutorial about how to set up your Family Sharing account.

When using Family Sharing, some family members (like children) sometimes end up with things on their devices that others (like parents) didn’t really want to share with everyone, like when my favorite song (with explicit lyrics) popped up on my 10 year-old's iPad! In that moment, I was inspired to write a how-to for setting up your Family Sharing so you can share what you’d like, and keep hidden what you don’t. Here’s how to hide App Store, iBooks, and iTunes Purchases in Family Sharing.

Parents can create an Apple ID for their kids under the age of thirteen. This allows the child to be a part of the Family Sharing plan on iPhone, which includes access to FaceTime, Game Center, iMessage, iCloud, and iTunes. By creating an Apple ID for your child, you can also enable Ask to Buy, which requires your approval before they can make purchases from iTunes, iBooks, or the App Store. You can add children to the family account on various devices including iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. The minimum age for an Apple ID is thirteen, which means if you want your child to have their own iCloud account within Family Sharing, they’ll need to be part of your Family. Luckily, setting up an Apple ID for kids is easy to do. If you’re trying to set up an iPad or iPhone for a child, consider also enabling Restrictions, which will give you control over what they can access and download on their device. Here’s how to create an Apple ID for your child.

We already have a tip on hiding specific purchases in Family Sharing, but what if you want to hide them all? Turns out, it’s easy to do in Settings.

With the addition of Family Sharing came the ability for family members with separate Apple IDs to share iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases made using the same credit card. It also made it easy for parents to approve or deny a child's purchases. As long as Ask to Buy is enabled for the children in the Family Sharing Group, the parent, dubbed the Family Organizer, has total approval power over children's App Store and iTunes purchases (Ask to Buy can't be enabled for adult family members.) The Organizer can also designate a second adult to approve kids' purchases. 

Losing an iDevice is not something any of us plan to do—but it happens. The easiest way to keep track of your device is to turn on the Find My iPhone feature. Hopefully you'll never need it, but if you do, it's a lifesaver! And using Find My iPhone in conjunction with Family Sharing means you can find any family member's lost iDevice. Here are some reasons that you'll want to use Find My iPhone to see the location of your devices and family members:

Take out the trash, do your chores, don't forget about your sister's dance recital... these are all things I'm sure we find ourselves saying to our children often. Reminders help keep everyone in the family on schedule without you and your spouse having to remember it all! Here’s how to setup a reminder for the family.

Sharing iTunes and App Store content is important. Family Sharing allows families to access the same content across multiple devices. Adding members to your Family Group is easy! Once you've set up Family Sharing and started your group, you can easily add new members anytime. The benefits of Family Sharing are having access to the same music, apps, and even iBooks. Here's how to send and accept family sharing invitations.