Does the findmyphone app have to be set up with the iCloud account set up on the ipod

[Awrude76]

Me and my wife recently bought ipod touches for our kids. We are an apple family. My wife wanted the find my phone app set up under her iCloud account. Our issue we are having now is that when we send messages on her iPhone, ipad or the new iPods it shows up on all of the devices. I am wondering if we set up the find my phone under her account and set up iMessage under the kids own iCloud account (which we have set up) if that will work? Hope this makes sense.

[Sparkee]

Find My iPhone is tied to the iCloud account, so if the kids have there own iCloud accounts you would have to log into their accounts either on iCloud.com or through the app on another iOS device to find them. Only one iCloud account can be logged into at a time on the Find My iPhone app.

If her object is to keep tabs on the kids Apple has a free Find My Friends app that works well for that purpose. It requires you to send invites and the others to accept but it can monitor many other iCloud users. It can also be disabled by the user too.

[rockmyplimsoul]

There is no problem sharing an iCloud account among family members. The problem is with how you set up iMessage on all your devices.

iMessage is associated with your Apple ID, and iMessage can use a phone number, e-mail address, or both to receive messages -- you can even designate multiple e-mail addresses to receive iMessages at. The problem you're having is that your iMessage settings on each device are all sharing the same Apple ID and at least one common e-mail address to receive messages at. You can fix this two ways:

1- Set up separate Apple IDs for each device. You can use the same Apple ID for purchases, but use individual IDs for iMessage (and FaceTime). If you want to go this route, create new Apple IDs for each device, then go into Settings/Messaging and tap on the "Send & Receive" entry. From there tap on the Apple ID and log out of the current account and log into the new account. For the non-iPhones, also make sure that they're not receiving iMessage at a common e-mail address.

2- The other way is to use the same Apple ID for iMessage on all devices, but set unique e-mail addresses for each device to receive iMessage at. The iPhone doesn't need to receive iMessage at an e-mail address, so you can un-check all e-mails in the Messaging settings. But non-iPhones need a designated e-mail address for iMessage, so make sure each one has a unique address.