iCloud email or Gmail

[AzureCloud]

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The one ding against GMail for me is the way contacts are handled. I do not like having a contact created for every single person I send an email to, and no, I don't want to GoogleTalk with them. Now, I know there's a way to set things so those contacts aren't on your phone. I still don't like it, and I always feel compelled to go clean up that list. I want to decide who to add to my contacts, and when to add them, not Google.

As for all the other points about reliability and spam filtering, I agree 100%. I've actually been torn about which to use since GMail first started. But I've been using my mac.com address since the iTools days, and I don't want to go through the trouble of notifying everyone.

To the OP, if you're on the fence keep one thing in mind. Apple has a history of taking this free service and charging money for it later on down the road. Everyone loves iCloud now that it's free, but for me there will always be that nagging question of "When are they going to decide to charge for this again?" If you choose to use iCloud email, I suggest you have a backup plan in case you need to jump ship quickly some day.

I think if you go to Gmail settings, under the General tab, you can turn off the auto-add contact thing, and under the Chat tab, you can tell it to only allow people to chat with you that you explicitly add to your list.

Also, I don't see Apple charging for iCloud again, at least not for a while. It is supposedly integral to their platform strategy for the next decade or so, so it would make sense that they would leave it accessible to all their users without an extra cost.

 

[KenOzz]

Which do you guys prefer? I've been using Gmail for the past few years since there was no free solution. Now that I've got a free iCloud email address should I use it or should I just keep doing what I'm doing? I'm a Sparrow user because it was a no brainer for Gmail so that might be a factor as well.

I really would like to use iCloud and my @me address, I have tried several times

But I just cant get passed the fact iCloud is designed NOT to update the email "Read" status across all my devices

I find it so frustrating that I read and deal with my emails on my mac, only to check my iPhone/iPad a few hours later to find the same emails showing as unread

So for that reason I keep my primary email address with Gmail, and I have no problems at all using Gmail as my email provider, and Sparrow as my email client

 

[joshsage]

gmail ftw!

 

[Ves]

Gmail as it is strongly integrated into my daily life routine.

 

[808?]

I use both.

I prefer to always have one or the other to fall back on when either is down.