mac me and icloud: Totally confused

[RickKC]

1. After upgrading to ios5 and icloud and Lion, when I try to send email with my old X@mac.com address, the ipad says "X@mac.com was rejected by the server."

2. On researching this I notice when I go into preferences on the macbook pro and click on mobile me it says I have been a member since 2008.

3. But if I go to me.com and log in with the same username and password as with my itunes/apple id account it says I signed up in 2010."

4. I go into appleid.apple.com with my X@mac.com apple id and try to verify X@me.com and it says that email has been verified by a different account.

5. So I go in to the ipad and set up X@me.com as a new email account and it is accepted and duplicates the emails in the X@mac.com (as it should do) so that tells me that X@mac.com and X@me.com are both my accounts. I can send emails on the ipad with the X@me.com too.

6. So, aren't the mac, me and icloud and apple id supposed to merge into one account?

7. Should I just delete the X@mac.com email address from my idevices and forget it and use X@me.com?

7a. But I still keep X@mac.com for my apple id?

8. 2 and 3 above and icloud each say I have different amounts of storage available like they are 3 different accounts or something. Are they?

9. So then I go to the macbook pro, preferences, icloud and try to activate email & notes and it wants a NEW email address. Why can't I use X@me.com or X@mac.com? icloud on my ipad uses X@mac.com but icloud on the macbook pro does not give me the option of using a current email address. Isn't icloud supposed to be the same across all my devices?

10. grrrr. Totally confused. Is this the way it works? Are my accounts totally screwed up and need to be straightend out? Will it fix itself when me.com goes away in June 2012? Should I just work with it as is since I got X@me.com to work on the idevices? Should I delete all my accounts and start over with a new apple id and "Dummies Guide To iCloud"?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[d21mike]

When you setup MobileMe did you use your @mac.com for it? If so, did you move it to iCloud be doing "www.me.com/move"? If you did not then you will need to do that. Of course if you move to iCloud you have to use iOS 5 and Mac Lion on all of your devices (maybe a back door complicated workaround for older Macs). You have until June 2012 to do this. Now, after moving to iCloud you can still use MobileMe (http://www.me.com) for the things that iCloud does not support until June 2012. I.E. Gallery and iDisk. Lastly, I have to say I am a little confused about the whole @mac.com and @me.com situation. When MobileMe came out Apple allowed customers of the old @mac.com to use it for MobileMe but all new customers had to use @me.com. I did not know if the old @mac.com could use either at the same time (interchangeable) but it appears you can.

 

[RickKC]

thanks! I just moved the macbook pro to the icloud properly using me.com/move and and got a new email of X2@me.com and got welcome emails on the iphone and ipad but...

I tried to set up X@me.com on the iphone as I did on the ipad above and got this message:

Not A Mobile Me Account
this account has already been migrated to icloud

The welcome email on the iphone says I can continue using X@me.com for email. The really old X@mac.com does work though.

So X@mac.com is the only one that works on the iphone and X@me.com is the only one that works on the ipad.

And what is X2@me.com for?

 

[d21mike]

thanks! I just moved the macbook pro to the icloud properly using me.com/move and and got a new email of X2@me.com and got welcome emails on the iphone and ipad but...

I tried to set up X@me.com on the iphone as I did on the ipad above and got this message:

Not A Mobile Me Account
this account has already been migrated to icloud

The welcome email on the iphone says I can continue using X@me.com for email. The really old X@mac.com does work though.

So X@mac.com is the only one that works on the iphone and X@me.com is the only one that works on the ipad.

And what is X2@me.com for?

Maybe you setup multiple me.com accounts. Not sure. Check your settings on your iPhone and iPad and make sure Settings / iCloud is the same on both. Also, check Setting / Mail, Contacts, Calendars and make sure it is the same on both. What is your iClloud Apple ID as it relates to these other iD's? I think normally you want your iCloud Apple ID to be the same as your iCloud Email (which would be a mac.com or me.com email address) to reduce the number of Apple IDs to deal with. Also, your iTunes ID can (if yo want) be separate. You only want to have 1 iTunes Apple ID (you can not merger purchases from multiple IDs into 1) for all of your purchases and it goes in to the Settings / Store on both the iPhone and iPad. Again, the old mac.com addresses were for people that wanted to keep their mac.com email addresses and did not want to switch to me.com. I think the people that have the mac.com addresses may also feel special in that no new mac.com email address are being given out (only me.com gong forward).

 

[RickKC]

Yes, when I upgraded to ios5 on the ipad and iphone I must have unwittingly created two different/same iCloud accounts with my apple ID. Plus I did not know I should upgrade the macbook to iCloud first. I'll go with that angle. Thanks!