How do i sync one itunes account with two iphones, one ipod touch, and a nano?

Question

I need help in how to sync the one itunes account we use as a family with the two iphones my wife and i have and an ipod touch that my son has and a nano that my daughter has. Please help.

Answer 1

That article applies, as far as I can tell, to all things called iPod X where X can be nano, touch, classic etc.
We don't have two iPhones in the family as yet but as I understand it each device can have separate settings for syncing calendars and contacts. For example my iPhone syncs these over the air with the Exchange server at work so if/when my wife gets an iPhone it would be easy to have hers sync to our computer
To make sure your apps don't inadvertently merge turn off Automatically sync new apps from the apps tab when you connect your device.
The Apple support document How to use multiple iPods with one computer suggests a number of ways for managing the media content. I use method two (Sync with selected playlists) with a slight twist. Rather than regular playlists I set the grouping field to indicate which users should receive which tracks and create smart playlists based on the content of this field.
e.g.
"Alice's Tracks" is "Grouping contains Alice" + "Kind contains audio"
"Bob's Videos" is "Grouping contains Bob" + "Kind does not contain audio"
Tracks that both Alice & Bob want on their iPods have the grouping set to "Alice/Bob"
etc.
I currently manage our family's five iDevices using this system, each getting a different selection to suit their tastes and the capacity of their device. An advantage of using the grouping field is that it is stored in file tags (for non-wav audio files anyway) so that it is relatively easy to recreate the playlists should the iTunes library get trashed and need rebuilding. Also useful if you move files about manually as playlist membership is preserved when you delete & re-import the tracks.
tt2