IOS software
Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and rekindle your love of Apple’s mobile devices Never share your Apple ID
Q My wife and I share an Apple ID to make Photos sharing easier and access News+ together. Because of that, I can’t use my profile photo for calls I make on my iPhone, as it complains that two phone numbers are associated with one Apple ID. Is there any way around that?
Your Apple ID and iCloud account A are intended for one individual to use, and shouldn’t be shared with anyone else, no matter how close you are. Although Apple doesn’t try to enforce that, it’s explicitly included in iCloud’s terms and conditions. You and your wife would do much better to have your own Apple IDs for separate iCloud accounts, that can then be grouped together with Family Sharing to bring you the same benefits and shared features, and your own profile photos.
Apple explains how to tackle this in support.apple.com/HT201060. Setting up a family group is straightforward: you each need your own distinct Apple IDs, and one of you becomes organiser of the group. The organiser then opens their Apple ID in Settings on their iPhone or iPad, or System Settings on a Mac, and opens Family Sharing there to set it up and add each of the other Apple IDs as family members.
You can then share iCloud+ storage (as explained at support.apple.com/HT208147), Photo Libraries, and subscriptions to Apple’s services including News+. Having individual accounts ensures that both your accounts are kept secure, and that your iCloud access is kept separate in the event that you might ever need to have solo or private access to contents stored in iCloud.