The GMail exodus? Confused UK user.

[tejaykay]

Hi All,

As a tech savvy UK mobileme user, I am incredibly frustrated with how confusing this transition is.

I currently use abc@me.com, but this was originally set up off of the back of a abc@mac.com account. This abc@mac.com address is my Apple ID and has been used for all of my Apple store purchases online.

My understanding is: I transition from mobileme to iCloud, and get to keep my @me.com/@mac.com address for all syncing and purchases. Purchases are continued to be associated with the same Apple ID. Is this correct?

I have c. 15,000 songs in my music library. When iTunes Match eventually moves to the UK, will these songs count to the 5GB limit?

I feel really let down with the confusion of this whole transition, and am quite tempted to move to my abc@gmail.com account, even if it is just for the mail. If I did this, would iCloud still be accessible for all other features? I understand that I'll have to keep purchasing through the abc@mac.com account, as Apple will never allow the changing of email addresses.

Is there a user guide written somewhere else (i.e. Macrumors, BGR, TAB) which is a little more comprehensive then the Apple site?

Thanks, and sorry for the bombardment!

 

[vitzr]

This is tightly controlled by Apple. They are completely rigid. No changing ones Apple ID.

 

[admanimal]

Is there a user guide written somewhere else (i.e. Macrumors, BGR, TAB) which is a little more comprehensive then the Apple site?

Maybe things will be less confusing when iCloud is actually released and meant for general use and Apple has a chance to post a full set of documentation.

 

[Nermal]

This is tightly controlled by Apple. They are completely rigid. No changing ones Apple ID.

You can do it on Apple's site...

 

[shandyman]

Hi All,

As a tech savvy UK mobileme user, I am incredibly frustrated with how confusing this transition is.

I currently use abc@me.com, but this was originally set up off of the back of a abc@mac.com account. This abc@mac.com address is my Apple ID and has been used for all of my Apple store purchases online.

My understanding is: I transition from mobileme to iCloud, and get to keep my @me.com/@mac.com address for all syncing and purchases. Purchases are continued to be associated with the same Apple ID. Is this correct?

I have c. 15,000 songs in my music library. When iTunes Match eventually moves to the UK, will these songs count to the 5GB limit?

I feel really let down with the confusion of this whole transition, and am quite tempted to move to my abc@gmail.com account, even if it is just for the mail. If I did this, would iCloud still be accessible for all other features? I understand that I'll have to keep purchasing through the abc@mac.com account, as Apple will never allow the changing of email addresses.

Is there a user guide written somewhere else (i.e. Macrumors, BGR, TAB) which is a little more comprehensive then the Apple site?

Thanks, and sorry for the bombardment!

iTunes Match will not count towards the 5Gb limit as it's on their servers, but understand it's not a streaming service, it's download, so you download the songs.

you can use iCloud for all other things but mail, originally my apple id (me@live.com) was everything but mail, until i enabled mail and it set me up a me@me.com one. if you're setting up a Gmail, then you can still use all features of iCloud, including email whilst additionally setting up a Gmail account on the device, don't even need to change the apple id, or even just not enable mail, but still use the @me.com apple ID.

 

[tejaykay]

You can do it on Apple's site...

You definitely cannot change your Apple ID. I've never even used my @mac address, yet I have to use it for my Apple ID. Frustrating.

 

[pcmxa]

You definitely cannot change your Apple ID. I've never even used my @mac address, yet I have to use it for my Apple ID. Frustrating.

maybe YOU can't change your apple id but I just did. In iTunes go to the iTunes Store. Log into your account. In account information you will see an edit link to the right of your Apple ID. Clicking on that lets you switch to whatever email you want.

 

[altecXP]

I'm almost to the point that the more I test iCloud the more I wish that I had not moved all my stuff from @live and @gmail to my MobileMe. I finally had everything setup so I had my iDisk, @mac email, bookmarks and contacts all perfectly syncing everywhere.

Now I'm losing iDisk, I dont like the sound of the way they are doing the new storage, and they are loosing bookmark syncing. I have found it easier to just setup outlook, and move everything back to gmail, and use dropbox for my online file sync. Which makes me wonder why I never need iCloud. It doesn't seem to make ANYTHING easier than MoblieMe I just seems to break what we finally had working well.

It also has made me start thinking, if I dont need MobileMe/iCloud and Im using gmail/dropbox why am I still buying a Mac? I need to use Office for my work anyway, and I can code C just as easily on a Windows PC or Linux. Constantly breaking my work flow is making me look at removing OS X from my MacBook and running something else till it dies and then buy another brand. There is nothing drawing me to Apple anymore.

 

[MillieWales]

You definitely cannot change your Apple ID. I've never even used my @mac address, yet I have to use it for my Apple ID. Frustrating.

Of course you can, people change email addresses all the time, there would be a lot of people unable to use the iTunes store if they couldn't change their login email. I have done it 3 times in recent years, and my partner has at least that many.

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...It also has made me start thinking, if I dont need MobileMe/iCloud and Im using gmail/dropbox why am I still buying a Mac? I need to use Office for my work anyway, and I can code C just as easily on a Windows PC or Linux. Constantly breaking my work flow is making me look at removing OS X from my MacBook and running something else till it dies and then buy another brand. There is nothing drawing me to Apple anymore.

I think its a bit early to be jumping to be fair, this isn't even a released service, its not finalised and there is very little from APple out there telling people how to use it. From what I understand features like bookmark syncing are going to be left to third party developers and Apple will allow them access to the service so we can benefit from all sorts of features. Apple has invested heavily in this stuff, that data centre didn't happen overnight, they do make mistakes but I doubt they would remove all the decent features and leave us with the rubbish.

It may end up all being a huge mistake, but I am going to reserve judgement until its all fully up and running and we can all test it to breaking point.

 

[Gav2k]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

It depends if your appleid was setup before it had to be an email.

 

[altecXP]

The simple fact the developers arn't sure how to use it makes we wonder how well it can even be tested. Heck I don't even know HOW to put things in the 25gb of storage I have.

 

[shandyman]

The simple fact the developers arn't sure how to use it makes we wonder how well it can even be tested. Heck I don't even know HOW to put things in the 25gb of storage I have.

the storage is for backup and iTunes in the Cloud music that isn't already in itunes. my iPad backup at 1 point was 8Gb

 

[altecXP]

the storage is for backup and iTunes in the Cloud music that isn't already in itunes. my iPad backup at 1 point was 8Gb

Then that just makes it even more worthless to me. All my music is already on my Mac, and copied to my RAID. What I need is a storage space that mounts like a drive and I can put the files I need everywhere in it. Oh wait, that was called iDisk.

My music is the last thing I will worry about if my house burns down.

 

[AML225]

Then that just makes it even more worthless to me. All my music is already on my Mac, and copied to my RAID. What I need is a storage space that mounts like a drive and I can put the files I need everywhere in it. Oh wait, that was called iDisk.

My music is the last thing I will worry about if my house burns down.

You need Dropbox. Waaaaaaaaaay better than iDisk.