If I registered my AppleID as herpderp@gmail.com for example, I still automatically get access to all the iCloud features right? Or do I have to register an @icloud.com (presumably) account?
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iCloud And AppleID Question
- Thread starter ohsnap
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So, I could use my gmail e-mail and it will sync my calendar, contacts, etc. that iCloud does as long as I use that as my apple ID?
Yes, exactly hokiepokie07. That's how it works right now (in beta). When you sign up for iCloud, it prompts you for an Apple ID. If your gmail address or whatever address is your Apple ID then that's fine. It will then start working with that Apple ID. They did emphasize that this is beta though.
Right now, you have to pick one or the other. We're hoping Apple will have a plan to merge the two.
Just my two cents here:
The iTunes Store ID (as seen in Settings/Store), iCloud ID (as seen in Settings/iCloud) and MobileMe ID (Mail, Contacts & Calendars settings) can each be entirely different IDs on your device. When the device is first set up it asks for a single ID (iCloud) which it will then use for the Store and iCloud purposes, but this is merely for simplicity. There is nothing that requires all these IDs to be the same.
For example, my wife & I have a shared Store account. This is a gmail address that I set as the Apple ID in Settings/Store. I then have a personal gmail address (which coincidentally is my personal Store ID I've had forever) that I use for my iCloud ID. Finally, I have a me.com address that is configured in the Mail, Calendars & Contacts settings and handles syncing of stuff with MobileMe (contacts, bookmarks, etc) as it does in iOS 4.x
MobileMe will eventually be phased out and replaced with iCloud & iCloud will assume the syncing functionality that MobileMe did. But we're not there yet. Eventually existing MobileMe accounts will be migrated to iCloud & and you can use your MobileMe ID as your iCloud ID. If you try to use your existing MobileMe ID as an iCloud ID now, you get an error stating "Not an iCloud account -- This MobileMe account has not been migrated to iCloud".
In short, use an existing Store ID or create a new me.com ID for use as an iCloud ID. If you have a MobileMe ID you can use it exactly as you did in iOS 4 & have it handle synchronizing of your data (instead of iCloud), just bearing in mind that at some point MobileMe is to be migrated to iCloud. At that point you use your MobileMe ID for iCloud.
Lastly: Music, Apps, & Books are pushed to your device using your Store ID. iCloud handles (eventually) mail, contacts, calendars, bookmark, reminder, notes, photostream syncing, find my iDevice & backup. So yes it is still easily possible to have a shared Store ID for the family app & music library will retaining a personal iCloud ID for PIM purposes.
The iTunes Store ID (as seen in Settings/Store), iCloud ID (as seen in Settings/iCloud) and MobileMe ID (Mail, Contacts & Calendars settings) can each be entirely different IDs on your device. When the device is first set up it asks for a single ID (iCloud) which it will then use for the Store and iCloud purposes, but this is merely for simplicity. There is nothing that requires all these IDs to be the same.
For example, my wife & I have a shared Store account. This is a gmail address that I set as the Apple ID in Settings/Store. I then have a personal gmail address (which coincidentally is my personal Store ID I've had forever) that I use for my iCloud ID. Finally, I have a me.com address that is configured in the Mail, Calendars & Contacts settings and handles syncing of stuff with MobileMe (contacts, bookmarks, etc) as it does in iOS 4.x
MobileMe will eventually be phased out and replaced with iCloud & iCloud will assume the syncing functionality that MobileMe did. But we're not there yet. Eventually existing MobileMe accounts will be migrated to iCloud & and you can use your MobileMe ID as your iCloud ID. If you try to use your existing MobileMe ID as an iCloud ID now, you get an error stating "Not an iCloud account -- This MobileMe account has not been migrated to iCloud".
In short, use an existing Store ID or create a new me.com ID for use as an iCloud ID. If you have a MobileMe ID you can use it exactly as you did in iOS 4 & have it handle synchronizing of your data (instead of iCloud), just bearing in mind that at some point MobileMe is to be migrated to iCloud. At that point you use your MobileMe ID for iCloud.
Lastly: Music, Apps, & Books are pushed to your device using your Store ID. iCloud handles (eventually) mail, contacts, calendars, bookmark, reminder, notes, photostream syncing, find my iDevice & backup. So yes it is still easily possible to have a shared Store ID for the family app & music library will retaining a personal iCloud ID for PIM purposes.
This is a really useful post thank you.
Looks like there is hope for those of us with multiple IDs. The implication of this is also that Apple still won't be sorting out the merging IDs issue of course, but we can't ask for everything can we?
Boy, I hope this is the case. We have a family iTunes Store ID right now, but my husband and I each have our own MobileMe account, with our own mail, calendar, contacts, etc. I really don't want to have to pick one or the other, either giving up our past purchases with the iTunes ID or give up our email addresses. We also will want to keep separate mail, calendar, and contacts, as I would imagine many people will. I wish Apple would address this in a FAQ somewhere, because a lot of people are concerned about it.
Nicely done, I was thinking pretty much the same thing. And I hope you are right. When I saw under Store you can setup you iTunes Store Account I felt that made since. My only difference in your setup is deciding which Account id to use for iCloud. I have an account I use for the Developer Web Site that is NOT an email address. It is just a userid type of Account ID. I was thinking that iCloud would be used to also sync my Mac Settings between computers which is separate from email (like we do with MobileMe now). Also, the New App Data Sync and even Contacts and Calendar are really separate from email. If I understand it correctly you do not need an email address to setup iCloud even though you can get a me.com address for free. What I am thinking is that I think iCloud is so much more the email and I may want to even change my email address so maybe just a userid type Account ID for iCloud Syncing. Also, if you look at mail setup you will now notice that there is an iCloud Setup much like MobileMe so it appears that you do not even need to use that part of iCloud if you are happy with Goggle for an example. Also, based on the mail setup maybe you could have 2 iCloud Account ids that are separate from iTunes Id (actually you may have said this). Anyway, that is my 2 cents.
Very helpful post, thank you! This makes it clearer to me how we can work out the sharing between my wife and I with our iPhones and iPad, but still there will be some issues. Steve mentioned calendar sharing which is great, but what about contacts if iCloud IDs are different? What about sharing the Photo Stream? We really just want to keep docs/bookmarks/appdata separate while sharing everything else and the iTunes store ID. Still good to see that you can have an iCloud ID separate from the iTunes ID.
I believe you're SOL if you want to share Photo Stream. Only a primary ("main") iCloud account (set up via Settings/iCloud) can be used for Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Find My iPhone, Storage and Backup. Clearly it is not desirable to share a primary account with anyone else because of the Find My iPhone and storage/data functionality associated with it.
While primary accounts can be used to sync Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, and Notes with the cloud, as just stated primary accounts should not be shared among users. Instead, a secondary account can be added (strangely, not via the Settings/iCloud menu but via Settings/Mail, Contacts and Calendars) and this account can be shared among users (disclaimer: I have not tried this!). So your spouse and you can have shared contacts, shared calendars, shared reminders if you both have the same secondary iCloud account configured on your devices.
All that said, iCloud accounts do not necessarily have anything to do with Store accounts. A Store ID could be the same as an iCloud ID, but it doesn't need to be. You can have IDs dedicated for just Store usage -- for example, a personal ID for your own apps and music, and a shared one for the family apps and music -- and you can have as many as you require. While you can be logged into multiple iCloud accounts at the same time, you can only be logged into one Store ID at a time (via Settings/Store). So if you are logged into your personal Store ID and you want to get the Apps, Music and Books that your spouse just bought using the shared account, you'll have to log out of your personal ID and into the shared ID. Pretty much the same as iOS 4 except iOS 4 didn't have push functionality for Store purchases.
Here's a screenshot that serves as proof of the differences between primary iCloud accounts and secondary (my email address is masked in the title bar). I hope this clears up any dangling confusions on this topic.
BTW, the text at the top of this shot doesn't quick coincide with the fact that the on/off sliders for Bookmarks and Find My iPhone are visible. Yet another probable bug.
Nice post but I am confused. You say you can only Sync Bookmarks with your "Primary" iCloud Account but in your post of your "Secondary" iCloud Account you are showing an option to Sync BooksMarks. Unless you are not able to turn that on but why show it if you can't?
It appears that the setup for iCloud Account is the same as the current MobileMe Account Setup (in Mail, Calendar .... settings). If so, why couldn't you create a special "Secondary" Account for Shared Contacts and only activate that option for both parties to share Contacts. Not sure you would need to do that for Calendar Sharing since you can do that already.
SORRY, I did not read very carefully...... It says right on the screen about Bookmarks. But maybe the Contact idea would work.
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I believe you're SOL if you want to share Photo Stream. Only a primary ("main") iCloud account (set up via Settings/iCloud) can be used for Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Find My iPhone, Storage and Backup. Clearly it is not desirable to share a primary account with anyone else because of the Find My iPhone and storage/data functionality associated with it.
While primary accounts can be used to sync Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, and Notes with the cloud, as just stated primary accounts should not be shared among users. Instead, a secondary account can be added (strangely, not via the Settings/iCloud menu but via Settings/Mail, Contacts and Calendars) and this account can be shared among users (disclaimer: I have not tried this!). So your spouse and you can have shared contacts, shared calendars, shared reminders if you both have the same secondary iCloud account configured on your devices.
All that said, iCloud accounts do not necessarily have anything to do with Store accounts. A Store ID could be the same as an iCloud ID, but it doesn't need to be. You can have IDs dedicated for just Store usage -- for example, a personal ID for your own apps and music, and a shared one for the family apps and music -- and you can have as many as you require. While you can be logged into multiple iCloud accounts at the same time, you can only be logged into one Store ID at a time (via Settings/Store). So if you are logged into your personal Store ID and you want to get the Apps, Music and Books that your spouse just bought using the shared account, you'll have to log out of your personal ID and into the shared ID. Pretty much the same as iOS 4 except iOS 4 didn't have push functionality for Store purchases.
Here's a screenshot that serves as proof of the differences between primary iCloud accounts and secondary (my email address is masked in the title bar). I hope this clears up any dangling confusions on this topic.
Image
Thanks for your post and the screenshot. This is very helpful. It seems like for the most part the primary iCloud account is old AppleID used with the iTunes Store and the secondary iCloud account corresponds to the old MobileMe. It would _seem_ then, that people could share an iTunes account but have separate MobileMe information, which is what we want to do. Hopefully they will allow both my husband and me to convert our individual MobileMe accounts to secondary iCloud accounts while sharing the same Store ID. It seems like it.
Bookmarks are a strange exception. Currently individual MobileMe accounts can sync different bookmarks. This stands out for me as not really going along with the other "primary" iCloud functions, like downloading apps, music, etc. Bookmarks seem more individual.
It seems like everyone wants to convert the iTunes Store Account into their Primary iCloud Account. I assume this is because you feel that the iTunes Account needs to be converted to an iCloud Account to get your purchased Content to sync to your devices. I am not sure this is true. On your devices you have "Store Settings" where you put your iTunes Account ID. Seems to me that my wife and I can each create a Primary iCloud Account from our MobileMe Accounts and if necessary create Secondary iCloud Accounts while at the same time using out iTunes Account "in the Store" Settings to get our Purchase Content (Music, Movies and Apps). You do not have to upgrade to iOS 5 to do this now. And this is the same Store Settings in iOS 5. Of course I could be totally wrong but I do not see anything yet that says this will not work.
I think the terminology of "primary" and "secondary" iCloud account is confusing (uncharacteristically so for Apple). The screenshots above from iOS5 beta are very helpful, but I think we are going to need to get clarification from Apple as to how exactly all of these different types of AppleIDs relate to each other.
I'm not sure what you mean above - personally I don't think it matters if they call my MobileMe info primary or secondary, just that I can preserve it and keep it separate from my husband's _and_ that we can still share our iTunes purchases.
As far as account confusion goes, there are now the following types of AppleIDs: iTunes Store AppleID, MobileMe ID, Primary iCloud Account, Secondary iCloud Account, and MobileMe IDs from the people who signed up for Find My iPhone but don't have a full MobileMe account. There may be more. I know they created an AppleID for my husband when he bought something on the online Apple Store (not iTunes - he never used it with iTunes). It was later hacked to be used with iTunes and when he reported it to Apple he was told it was impossible to discontinue an AppleID, even one he didn't even realize had been created. I think of that whenever Apple boasts in a keynote about how many iTunes accounts they have. I suspect there are a lot of duplicates out there. I think Apple has a little work to do to sort out all of these IDs.
I agree with you completely. My son and I were just talking about this and I told him what I posted here. He has been saying all week that we need 1 Apple ID (per person) that we use for everything. I said, what about iTunes Store Purchases. His reply is that we should be able to "Share" that we other Apple ID's (my input would like maybe 3-5 other Apple ID's - like when you can buy software and put it on say 3-5 computers in the home). Anyway, I do not think they will do this so that is why I say we should buy all of our iTunes Content on 1 Apple-id that is shared. In my case it is just between my wife and I since my kids are all married on their own doing the same thing in their houses. But I do prefer his method of sharing content with multiple ID's, this seems pretty clean.
What your son is talking about is, I believe, Home Sharing which requires a computer and requires all those computers to be under the same roof (or, at the least, the same network).
Each computer (each instance of the desktop version of iTunes) would need to be authorized for each of the individual Apple IDs in the household. You could then enable Home Sharing which, last I checked, only takes one ID. Does it give you access to content associated with all the IDs that each of the computers are configured for? Or does it only give you access to content associated with the ID you used to turn on home sharing with? I'm honestly not certain but it's worth checking out.
I don't use home sharing myself. My wife and I merely authorize our own personal accounts on our own devices (we've had these accounts since before we met), and we each authorize our shared account. That's it. Our individual accounts are for "legacy" purposes; going forward we use only our shared Store account.
And please note again that the Store account has nothing to do with iCloud or MobileMe. It could be the same as your iCloud or MobileMe, but it is not required to be. I currently use my personal Store ID (which is a gmail address) as my primary iCloud ID. I still have a MobileMe ID (configured in Mail, Contacts and Calendars) for my own PIM stuff (contacts, mail, cals, etc). And then I use our shared Store ID (a gmail address too) for Store purchases. Once current MobileMe IDs are migrated to iCloud, I will be using my current MobileMe ID as my primary (personal) iCloud ID. I will no longer have MobileMe settings on the phone (since it will be phased out!). I will continue to use our shared Store ID for the Store. And my wife and I will set up a secondary, SHARED iCloud ID (using the same gmail address we use for our shared Store ID) for shared contacts, calendars, reminders, etc. iTunes will be authorized as it is now: for our shared Store account and our personal (legacy) Store accounts.
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Email verification?
My iCloud pane in setting is saying that my email (itunes account) needs to be verified first and to check my email. But I have got nothing via email to verify it?? Or do I need to do something to my itunes ID email first before logging into icloud?
My iCloud pane in setting is saying that my email (itunes account) needs to be verified first and to check my email. But I have got nothing via email to verify it?? Or do I need to do something to my itunes ID email first before logging into icloud?
This guy has a blog post addressing the iCloud/MobileMe/iTunes Store/AppleID situation:
http://blog.brianstucki.com/post/6357111001/sharedicloud
He has tested it with Lion and iOS5. There is no mention of primary/secondary iCloud IDs, but it sounds like he was able to get it working to use MobileMe for the calendar, contacts, etc., and his original AppleID (shared with other family members) for purchased stuff.
http://blog.brianstucki.com/post/6357111001/sharedicloud
He has tested it with Lion and iOS5. There is no mention of primary/secondary iCloud IDs, but it sounds like he was able to get it working to use MobileMe for the calendar, contacts, etc., and his original AppleID (shared with other family members) for purchased stuff.
@f00f
I've been searching for days and finally hit on this discussion. Thanks to everyone participating, and especially to the great answers from @f00f.
Let me pose this question. I have a STORE ID that's a @gmail.com. If I want to continue using that as my iCloud ID, and I want to sync Contacts, Calendars, etc., BUT NOT EMAIL (lets say I'm happy with gmail) I see youtube videos where people just set up their iCloud with a gmail address.
Question is, if I also want to sync NOTES, I see that if you click to activate iCloud NOTES syncing it asks you to create a @me.com address. What happens in that case, does that @me.com become your iCloud ID, do you keep say your @gmail.com, which address is iCloud set up with then?
I've been searching for days and finally hit on this discussion. Thanks to everyone participating, and especially to the great answers from @f00f.
Let me pose this question. I have a STORE ID that's a @gmail.com. If I want to continue using that as my iCloud ID, and I want to sync Contacts, Calendars, etc., BUT NOT EMAIL (lets say I'm happy with gmail) I see youtube videos where people just set up their iCloud with a gmail address.
Question is, if I also want to sync NOTES, I see that if you click to activate iCloud NOTES syncing it asks you to create a @me.com address. What happens in that case, does that @me.com become your iCloud ID, do you keep say your @gmail.com, which address is iCloud set up with then?
That @me.com address becomes associated with your Apple ID as a secondary email address. To prove this... if you were to login to iCloud with your @me.com (same password as the @gmail.com Apple ID) it will work... but then default to @gmail.com in the User ID field.
Wow, really? And you've tested this? Very interesting! Thank you very much for your answer (contrary to popular beliefs, THERE ARE sites with helpful people online)!
And when you say "but then default to @gmail.com in the User ID field.", you mean that the @gmail.com address is the one still visible at the top of SETTINGS/iCLOUD?
I wonder if any of you can help me with this. My store id is my gmail account but to get the full use of iCloud it seems you need to create an iCloud .me account. So I created a new .me account and it set up as my primary iCloud account. I then decided I would prefer to use a different name for my primary iCloud account, so I deleted the first one I created and got a new one. Problem is the new one is labeled as secondary iCloud account. I wonder how I can assign the secondary account to be the primary?
Any ideas appreciated.
Any ideas appreciated.