The easiest way to do this is to create separate playlists for you and your wife. When you plug in your iPod you can then select only the playlists you want synced and when she plugs in hers she can do the same, but you each end up choosing only what you want.

With the recent ‘Genius’ playlist option it’s pretty easy to pick a few songs you like, make genius playlists, and then save them to sync to your iPod.

If you rely only on checking or unchecking the individual tracks and enabling the ‘Sync only checked songs or videos’ option, you’ll quickly find that this is an all or nothing affair and you won’t have the control you’re after.

For more on playlists see the iTunes video tutorial from Apple:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/how-to/#video-playlists

@Phillip – Your function isn’t quite the same thing: iTunes->Preferences->Sharing “Share Entire Library” is great, but reading another user’s shared library only works while that user is both logged in AND actually running iTunes. Depending on how one shares a computer, this can be rather frustrating (switch user, log in, start itunes, switch back, access shared music…). And a bit of a memory hog, too.

Did you know that there is the “Sharing” function in iTunes that makes this *really* simple?

iTunes->Preferences->Sharing “Share Entire Library” (or selected playlists if you wish).

Go to the other account.

iTunes-Preferences->Sharing and select “Look for shared libraries”

Then select the iTunes library under the shared section.

You may have this covered already, if so, sorry. But I’ve heaps of issues moving and consolidating libraries in my work and I would advise caution before attempting it!

Cheers

You should be fine to register these with your own Apple Store accounts if you want to keep them separate. In the past you could authorize up to 5 computers to play music bought on iTunes. For example, music bought on your girlfriend’s iTunes Store account could be authorized to play in her account on your mac, your account on your Mac, and up to 3 other places. Since Apple switched to DRM free music however I don’t believe you even have to deal with that.

Bottom line is you should be fine to either share a single iTunes store account or create two separate ones.

Anyway, we got each other ipods for Christmas. After setting up the single library, my girlfriend registered her iTouch in her name and created her own apple store account. I have a nano and before I go into my user account I have a question. Is is ok to register this in my name and create a different account? Should I use the same one?

Thanks for you help.

I think you’ll find both iPhones will work just fine and now that you have a single library you’ll be able to install whichever apps you like on both of your devices. I only have 1 iPhone so haven’t tested that out but let me know how it goes!