The fact that my wife and I both have iPhones is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because well… we both have iPhones. But it’s also a curse. It has become another gadget to upgrade, to pimp up and gulp- to depreciate quickly . We were both going to get the 2nd generation iPhones but after weighting in the fact that the original ones are upgradable via software, it became hard to justify the cost of a whole new phone. Sorry, 2 new phones. So we opted for the software update, which gave us in a lot of ways a new phone. The upgrade was free, but the mostly inexpensive apps add up. This got me thinking about Fairplay, Apple’s DRM technology used throughout the iTunes store for music and now applications as well. Fairplay allows you to register up to 5 computers and unlimited iPods/iPhones synced to those computers. So… it should be easy for my wife and I to share iPhone apps with each other as long as both our iTunes are authorized to use them. All we need to do is authorize both accounts in both computers and re-download the apps. This could work in Windows, but why would I right?
Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to do it.
Scenario
I have 2 Macs, 2 iPhones, 2 iTunes accounts.
I used one account to buy a game, and another account to buy another one. The goal is to have both games playable on both phones legally with no hacks.
Solution
Have each computer be authorized for both accounts. Re-download apps on 2nd computer with 1st computer iTunes account.
Step 1: Authorize Computers
I step into my wife’s mac, launch iTunes, log out of her iTunes Store account and log in with mine.
Step 1: Log Out and In
Still inside iTunes, I go to the app store and click the Buy App button on the application I had bought in my computer.
- Step 2: re-download
iTunes knows I already paid for this and just let’s be re-download it without charging me again.
Step 2: Confirm
The app then begins to download.
- Step 2: downloading
Once the download is complete, it now shows in the Applications section of iTunes.
- Step 2: downloaded
I can now log out of my iTunes Store account and log her’s back in.
Step 1: Log out and in
Step 3: Sync & Play
I can plug her phone in now and sync.
Step 3: sync
The app should transfer without any fuss.
Step 3: syncing
Once synced, it shows on her phone ready for playing.
Step 3: play
And now both our kids can take over our phones and drain those batteries out.
Step 3: playing
Enjoy.
Hello, I am Melvin Rivera; creator of 
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how would you do this for an app such as NetShare that’s been pulled from the US app store? I have it on one computer, but how to I move it to another, authorized computer?
This no longer works, i think apple updated itunes. :(
Just upgraded to the new firmware (2.0.1) and this doesn’t seem to work. Are they related? Do you have to be logged in to the purchasing account in order to sync the apps?
Hey Melvin, this is a great tip. I’m wondering if you and your wife share music this way? My wife and I both have iPhones, and I’m working on a solution for that.
We have a pretty large music collection (140ish GB) which I keep all connected to my machine so as to only manage one iTunes library. Previously (when we just used iPods) I just manually managed all of the music on her iPod – unfortunately we haven’t figured out how do do this with our new iPhones since my wife’s iPhone doesn’t want to connect to my iTunes w/out being synced to my machine.
Have you (or anyone else) figured out a solution for this?
Still works — here’s what I did — all the apps are one account, so I just synced the second phone to that account (turned off all syncing except apps). Once the second phone went to it;s home computer, it synced the apps back to the computer. All on 7.7.1, 2.0.1 versions.
hey i went to do this right now but when i log onto itunes on another computer with the account that i paid for the app with and click buy app it says are you sure you want to buy this app? i say yes…then another confirmation comes up saying that my credit card will be charged! (as the second confirmation)
where is the screen that says you have already bought it ?????????
Yes the original method no longer works but I was still able to make this happen. Here’s how I did it:
Copy the .ipa files to be shared (usually stored under your Music/iTunes folder) from their original purchase location to a USB stick. Put the USB stick into the computer that the second phone syncs to. Open iTunes and open the “Applications” library. Drag the .ipa files into the Applications window. Sign in to this copy of iTunes as the original purchaser of the application(s) (I’m not sure if this step is necessary or not but I did it). Authorize this copy of iTunes as the original purchaser of the applications under Store->Authorize computer (this step definitely required). Now sync the second phone as usual and the shared apps should transfer to the phone.
Worked for me as of 10 mins ago. Thanks for the tips everybody!
worked great.
Beware that having apps from 2 different accounts on the same computer will mess up the update checking (it will always say “no updates”).
Also on the iPhone/iPod – having apps from multiple account will prevent you from seeing any updates on the phone.
Using the latest firmware 2.2.1 on an iPhone 3G with iTunes 8.02 … want to share with my husband’s MacBook and my iMac… two separate iTunes accounts with two separate credit cards … we are currently authorized for each other’s songs & videos….
Is there anything new in this configuration that I should know about? It seems the easiest way is to physically transport over the apps via USB, but some report that it then no longer updates, but others say it does.
To get around that for sure, is there a way to manually check for updates on apps? Through iTunes on the computer or on the iPhone itself?
Thanks so much, Xena