How do my partner and I share our calendars on our iPhones?

Question

Hello.  I am completely new to all of this so I apologise if I don't follow any protocols correctly.  I would love some help to figure out the best way for my partner and I to share our calendars on our iPhones please.  I have done a lot of research but I still have no idea where to start.  I guess I am leaning towards some kind of app but open to all options.  I would love us to be able to view and edit each others calendars and also a "shared" calendar which stores appointments and events that we are both committed to.  It would be handy if an event was added to the "shared" events calendar, for it to be automatically added to each of our individual schedules.  I should also mention that the apple devices we have are my iPhone 4, my partners iPhone 4s, and also the latest iPad (I think it is a 4 with retina?), but no Mac desktop or laptop computer.
I have read a lot of good things about the app "Fantastical" and like the look of it but not sure if it is a personal calendar or if we can both use it to add and edit from our seperate devices.  Doesn't look like it has a task manager though.  Also, do I have to have a gmail account to link to these apps?  Information that I've read seems to talk about syncing with other calendars but we don't currently use any kind of digital calendar.  I would be open to creating one if necessary but if it could all be done in the one app that would be great.
Open to suggestions on other apps - I have downloaded a few free couples ones such as "Avocado", "Cozi" and "Simply Us" to preview and would be open to purchasing full versions if I knew they were right for me - so far it doesn't look to me like there is a big enough emphasis on the calendar feature, they are about messaging and photos which aren't a priority at all for us.  Cozi seems to have a lot of the features I'm after, but when I view the "Shared" calendar it shows shared events, but then they do not show up in our individual calendars.  Also the To Do section doesn't seem to correspond to days, just a general list, so you can't assign certain tasks to certain days.  The features I am after is mainly a calendar with the specifications I have listed above (individual and shared calendars that can all be viewed and edited by both parties, and shared calendar events automatically booked on to individual calendars as well - also daily or weekly views as well as monthly).  A To Do or Task Manager feature would also be great, preferably where you could see who added which item to the list, or seperate lists.  And lastly, a grocery list that we could both view and update.  But I mainly would just like a great shared calendar and a task manager/to do as a bonus!
Does anyone have any advice for me?  I think I am after a little more than the standard calendar app that comes with the iPhone?  Also, we don't have iCloud set up and have no idea how to do this or really even what it is - as you can see I'm a bit of a beginner and pretty hopeless.  Really don't know where to start.
Sorry for the length of this post, I am just very confused!  Thank you so much in advance to anyone who is kind enough to take the time to respond.
Message was edited by: kelliemd
One more thing sorry, it would also be great if my partner was alerted when I added or edited something, and visa versa.  Thanks again.

Answer 1

Hi,
the content was purchased using two different Apple-IDs / Accounts?
If above is the case, then I fear you cannot merge the content using now one combined account. Content always belongs to one dedicated account. As well as a iTunes library can only belong to one dedicated Apple-ID. And also the iPhone can only belong to one dedicated iTunes library and also Apple ID (for the store stuff, for iCloud stuff you can use a second ID)