iCloud and Multiple iPhones/iOS Devices... Mirrored iChat(s)??? and Calendars...

[spacescape]

Ok, I'm kind of confused but "think" I know how to fix the slight problem but still need help understanding how everything works. First things first... Last night my friend with his new iPad sent me an e-mail via his iPad. I believe even though he used my e-mail address he sent the message via "Messages"... I received his e-mail/message on my phone along with his images. It looked more like a Text Message but that was fine... However, what was weird was my wife received the message as well. She could reply back and it would "mirror" to my phone (what she sent) and the same goes for if I replied it would "mirror" to her phone as well.

After a little google searching it appears that my problem is that I have both hers and my iPhone synced to iCloud with the same ID. So, I'm being told that even though we can both use the same Apple ID for iTunes (and registering our iOS devices)... We both need our own iCloud login.

Is this true? Can anyone explain this more?

The second "issue" I'm having is that I have calendars setup with "dates/reminders" of Birthdays, Appointments, etc... These are "MY" calendars... However, my wife can see them... Same goes for my son's iPod Touch (not sure about the iPad 1 device or not)... Not a huge deal (I think... unless they change my appointments by accident)... But, they get my "reminders"... Which is a little annoying...

Is this an iCloud problem as well? I'll probably setup the kids devices to not sync to the cloud either way... But, still need "Find my iPhone" setup... The wife I need synced to iCloud.

Any tips? Advice?

Thanks.
Bill

[ztirffritz]

You have it right. I set up iCloud accounts for my wife and I. This is separate from the AppleID used to purchase music and apps. It took a while to get it set up right but I have it now. We have separate iCloud calendars but we can see and edit each others apts. You can make them read only or not visible at all but this is what works for us. You can also associate multiple email addresses and numbers to imessage. Again, it took a while to straighten it out. The bigger problem was the address book. My addresses and my wife's kept overwriting or merging. I can't remember how I fixed that but it seems to have worked itself out.