This year marks exactly 25 years since I started using Apple Macs, with my first personal Mac Mini purchased a few years later.
While most stuff over the years did ‘just work’, like many long-term users there was one quirky account issue that remained illusive to Apple’s roadmap. This Fast Company article explains it much more precisely than I can, but effectively, back in the days before iCloud, and even MobileMe or dotMac, many of us signed up for iTunes or other Apple purchases with third party email accounts, like Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail.
When the iOS App Store came along in 2008, followed by the Mac App Store and iCloud in 2011, this then created a divide between your official Apple ID Account and a ‘purchases’ account tied to a third party. Given the shear number of users in this situation, many assumed a merging solution would follow quickly, but for 14 years – and with ever-increasing new hardware and software tied to these accounts – nothing was forthcoming.
That was, unbelievably, until February this year, when – completely under the radar – Apple released documentation for Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another Apple Account. Unfortunately, as the Fast Company article points out, the migration proposed still comes with several limitations.
It was my hope that the documentation was a precursor to a bigger announcement in June’s WWDC, but sadly that didn’t materialise, not even in any of the Developer sessions. Perhaps whatever technical obstacles that kept it from being available for years, still have some hurdles to overcome.
For myself, until there’s a true dedicated platform for merging two accounts (the current solution is very much hit ‘Migrate Purchases’ and hope for the best), and a track record of success amongst users, I’ll be staying put – given the 20 years of music, software, email, and other bits that are at stake. Let’s just hope it’s not that long until the next update from Apple on this situation.