New iPad for the Mrs - Setup Advice Please

[AP0ll0UK]

Evening All

I've just been and bought my wife a new iPad Mini with Retina display for Christmas. I'm a complete Android fanboy but I have to say the iPad Mini is a lovely device, impressive display.

Anyway, she currently has an iPhone 5 which is setup with her Apple ID and her Hotmail account. We got married earlier this year and she's yet to fully migrate to a new email address because everyone has her old one.

I've set her up a Google Mail account as quite a lot of our friends are either on iMessage or Google Hangouts.

What I'd like to do is setup her iPad with her new GMail account, download a few apps, apply all the udpates, and then download some books and magazines to it so she can play with it on Christmas Day rather than me having to spend most of the Christmas Day afternoon setting it up for her.

All straight forward, but on her iPhone she is using a different Apple ID with her old Hotmail account which uses her maiden name.

What's the best way to have everything consolidated into one account, apps, iCloud stuff, messages, photos, etc? Should I setup the iPad with her existing old Hotmail account, let it sync with iCloud, update everything, then just change the email address on her iPad account on Christmas Day to her new GMail account? And just keep an eye on her Hotmail account whilst I'm setting up her iPad to make sure she doesn't receive any 'Thank you for buying an iPad' messages so it doesn't spoil the surprise.

Or, can I setup her iPad with the new Gmail account, update everything, and then merge everything from her old Apple ID into the new one on Christmas Day and just have her use the new Apple ID and GMail account from then onwards?

I also need to be mindful of iMessage as quite a lot of her friends send her iMessages. I'm guessing this is based on the email address but I don't know for certain and can't easily test it due to being a Nexus 4 owner! If it is based on the email address, is she going to have to spam all her friends and tell them to update their contacts details for her from Hotmail to GMail?

[flukesy]

You can setup IMessage with multiple forms of contact if that helps

[funkyg]

The first time you download any apps on a new iDevice it does send a confirmation email so watch out for that.
Also you can't consolidate App Store accounts but you can download using more than one account.

[Teajunkie]

As above apple will notify you so don't sign in to her account....

Personally I would set it up using gmail then Xmas day log onto gmail via web browser and add her hotmail address to her new google account.
That way she doesn't need to use two separate accounts.

https://support.google.com/accounts/.../2541991?hl=en