There are soo many great things about it that I could write for what seems like forever, but today I just wanted to cut to the chase about sharing applications that you have purchased from the app store.

See recently Apple opened up 3rd party apps in the app store. This means the other people can write apps and with  Apples approval, they will get published in the app store. The coders that make these apps offer dozens and dozens of new apps daily for pay or for free. Yes free….there are tons of apps for the iPhone for free. Why bother with jailbreaking these days? Oh sure maybe hacking it will allow the forwarding up sms messages or copy and paste, but thats coming in the next update anyways and updates come along often.

Ok back to the topic.

I have lots of free high quality apps on my phone right now. However there are some that are not free and I bought them. One evening I found scrabble in the app store and decided to get it. It was really neat and I discovered that I could play another user over wifi. Since my wife has one I asked her to purchase it and we could both play. She did and without a hitch it worked wonderfully and was a lot of fun.

Two weeks later I discovered she had another game that I used to really like. It was bejeweled. Unfortunatly it was not a free game and I wanted it. Me being the penny pincher that I am, my wheels started turning. I was thinking that when she backs up her phone the app is on her computer. How could I get that app onto my phone and not pay for it? At first I was thinking there was some file I would have to transfer over, but there is a much easier way.

Now I know what you are already thinking…this is stealing right? NO its really not and let me tell you why.

Apple will gladly take your money as you purchase multiple copies software. They dont care if you by bejeweled a gazillion times. It can get expensive buying multiple copies of the same software for every member of your family. and, Apple would love the business. Why do that when you dont have to?

You see, the fairplay Digital Rights Management that Apple uses to protect its iPhone applications from piracy allows you to authorize up to five computers to share your iTunes purchases. So, you should be able to share that single copy of bejeweled or any other app for that matter, with up to four other people.

See we are not stealing, we are saving money! Ok here is the rundown on how to do this. I will try to make it so simple that even a caveman could do it.

Problem
We have Windows Computers, 2 iPhones, 2 iTunes accounts. (Mine and My Wifes)

She used her account to buy a game, and I used my account to buy another one.
The goal is to have both games playable on both phones legally with no hacks.
(I do not like spending money when I dont have to)

Solution
Have each computer be authorized for both accounts. Re-download apps on 2nd computer with 1st computer iTunes account.

Step 1: Authorize Computers
I went to my computer and logged out of iTunes and logged back in with her login.
Still inside iTunes,  I go to the app store and click the Buy App button on the application that she had bought on her computer.

Step 2: re-download
iTunes knows she already paid for this and just let’s me re-download it without charging me again.

Confirm
The app then begins to download.
Once the download is complete, it now shows in the Applications section of iTunes.
I can now log out of her iTunes Store account and log back in as me.

Step 3: Sync & Play
I can plug my phone in now and sync.
The app should transfer without any fuss.

If it DOES fuss it will be about “This application was not installed on the iPhone because you are not authorized for it on this computer”
This is an easy fix, in fact I should have mentioned this earlier. What you have to do is while in iTunes, go to the Store menu at the top of iTunes and choose Authorize Computer from the menu. That will fix it. This is the part where you can register up to five computers that I was talking about earlier.

Once synced, the application shows on my phone ready for playing.

Hope this was a helpful tutorial. Have fun with your iPhones!!!