How you can use Family Sharing along with Find My iPhone

With new updates OS updates. Apple is focusing on providing as much as features possible as a part of it’s OS itself. Family sharing not only allows to share App Store purchases and iTunes purchases with your family, but you can also use the features for wellness checks and track devices of all the family members using Find My iPhone with it’s new features. Now anyone of your family members forget their phone anywhere.

Next time if you want to find out your family member or your own phone, you can use Family Sharing and Find My iPhone.

Setting up the Family Sharing

In order to use the Family Sharing with the Find My iPhone feature, you need to set up and configure the Family sharing option from your device. Below are step by step instructions setting up the Family Sharing

1. Launch Settings on your device. It is applicable for iPhone and iPad both.
2. Find the iCloud banner at the top of the Settings screen. You need to tap on your registered name. It is the name of your Apple Id.
3. If you’re doing for the first time, the Family Sharing option states Set Up Family Sharing. You can go through the Get Started screen where you can learn more about the Family Sharing option. It’s the same screen letting you through all the features relating to sharing iTunes purchases with your family members.
4. Getting started with the Family sharing will allow you setting up the Family Members for your account. Having added the Family members means you can share the iTunes purchases with the members.

5. In our required feature you need to Share Location with the Family members.

6. Apple maintains privacy for every Apple user, and therefore, you need to invite your members for Family Sharing features.

7. Interestingly, if you’re using iOS 10 or earlier, you can directly set up the family members from the Get Started screen.

   1. In case you’re using iOS 11 or later, the family members are required to be invited firstly.

   2. In the case the Family Members you want to add will be sent an invitation via iMessage.

   3. Invited Family member can accept or reject the invitation. The same flow is used for any third party wellness check application, else Apple might reject the application because of breaching the privacy guidelines.

8. In any of the above case, you can repeat the process to keep on adding the Family Members as you want. You can add up to 6 Family members.

Setting up the Find My iPhone application to grant access for using Apple’s location tracking service on iPhone and iPad devices

Family Sharing is supported in iOS 8 or above. In order to use the Find My iPhone feature with the Family Sharing, you need to install Find My iPhone application from Apple App Store. It is a free application on the App Store and can be used to track your devices. Device tracking works with the Family Sharing group. Therefore, all the members you have added in your Family Sharing group will be able to track your device.

As a next required step, every Family Member added in the group should grant access to the Find My iPhone for devices to be tracked.

There are few easy steps that you can follow granting access to the Find My iPhone application as below.

• Firstly launch Settings in the iPhone or iPad.
• Tap the Apple Id banner, specifically name like the previous steps above.
• Go to iCloud.
• When you have Find My iPhone application on your device, you will be able to see the Find My iPhone option in iCloud options listing.
• Select Find My iPhone to go to it’s detail page and switch on the toggle button.

Ask your Family Members to do it on their devices. Only the devices that have turned it on will be able to track your device. Other members, though might be in your Family Sharing group and if not turned on their Find My iPhone option in iCloud, will not be able to track your device.

Tracking iPhone or iPad device in Find My iPhone application

Once both Family Sharing option is enabled and Find My iPhone application is installed on devices with granted access to Find My iPhone app, you can use the application to track the location of your Family Members in it.

Here are the steps you can follow:

• Launch the Find My iPhone application from the home screen of your device.
• Launching the application will ask Apple ID verification, where you can login to the application using your devices Apple ID credentials. This should be the individual Apple login.
• Once signed in, you will be able to see a list of all the members who have been added in the Find My iPhone application with granted access.
• In the list, your own device will be listed at the top and then followed by all the other members.
• You can simply tap on any of the device to track it’s information.

• You can also tap on Play Sound tab in the bottom menu bar. It will notify the other person making a shrill beeping sound in case the user has not shared their location. In case they have shared the location, you will be able to see it in the in-app Apple Map.
• Other options are locking the device or erasing the Family Member’s device from Find My iPhone application.

In-app Apple Map also allows you zooming in and out, check the nearby places or landmark making it simple for you to track their device.

Summarizing everything, Apple allows tracking iPhone and iPad device using the Find My iPhone application using Family Sharing feature. Firstly, Family Sharing needs to be enabled on every family members’ devices. In iOS 11 and above, invitation is sent to Family Members added, and they are added in a user’s Family Sharing group once invitation is accepted. As a next step, all the Family Members’ devices should have Find My iPhone and grant access individually in iCloud.

Hope you find this blog useful for using Apple Find My iPhone application with Family Sharing. If you have any query relating iPhone and Android features then we will surely get back to you. For some more helpful blogs, enjoy reading our interesting blogs on your favorite topics.