Apple Not Offering Apple ID Merging

MacRumors · Oct 12, 2011

In September, there had been some hope that Apple was working on a solution to allow users to merge multiple Apple IDs into one. The news came from an encouraging phone call from Apple's executive relations team saying that they were aware of the issue and seemingly working on it.

Now that iCloud has launched, many have been wondering if anything had come of the previous discussion. One reader emailed Tim Cook and received an official response. Apple is simply pointing users to a support document outlining your options for managing multiple Apple IDs. Unfortunately, merging is not one of the options.

Their recommended solution is, of course, to use the same Apple ID for both store purchases and iCloud. They also explicitly state that merging simply isn't an option:

Can I merge multiple Apple IDs into one??
You cannot merge two or more Apple IDs into a single one. You can, however, use one Apple ID for iCloud services and another Apple ID for store purchases (including iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match). See "Using one Apple ID for iCloud and a different Apple ID for Store Purchases" above for details.

The document does outline the possibility to use one Apple ID for store purchases and another for iCloud, but that's as far as it goes.

Article Link: Apple Not Offering Apple ID Merging

levifig · Oct 12, 2011

That's a really "old" article and no update has been made recently. That is the exact wording since I saw it the first time a couple of months ago, before rumors of merging were surfaced.

I don't care if Apple allows merging publicly but we testers had to create new IDs for iCloud pre-migration and are now stuck with two, unnecessary, IDs and some of us already paid for iTunes Match and storage upgrades :\

NTurner42 · Oct 12, 2011

Stupid, just stupid.

Edit: I guess the way I look at it, when iTunes Match hits, I'll just activate it on my @me.com address and it'll just essentially move it all over anyway. Mostly what I have is music, apps are aggravating though...

al256 · Oct 12, 2011

Eventually something has to give. This simply can't continue... I've been with the iTMS since 03. More complex situations continue to rise with the drm and Apple's other services.

alphaod · Oct 12, 2011

This is disappointing my MobileMe, iTunes, and Apple.com accounts are all separate. I would have liked to merge them into one, or at least have them linked in some way. I'm pretty sure linking should be easy; just look at all the other websites that let you link multiple aliases.

pancakedrawer · Oct 12, 2011

I'm sure Apple will allow this in the future.
There are many people who signed up today and there will be more in the future now that we're over the disaster that was MobileMe.
Insisting that people keep their old gmail accounts going doesn't sound like it would fit well with Apple's idea of enhancing their ecosystem.
:apple:

Mak47 · Oct 12, 2011

My issue is simply that I'd like my @me.com email address to be my single Apple ID, instead of an old gmail account that I really no longer use.

Mail, contacts, calendars etc. all use that address as my iCloud account as of today. All the other one is for is for iTunes purchases.

While the current solution technically works fine, it just seems silly that Apple can't find a way to make this work. I can change my Apple ID in iTunes to a new email address if I want to with no trouble, why not my @me.com address?

Amadeo · Oct 12, 2011

This is something I was JUST trying to figure out minutes ago. And you are certainly right. They continued to screw us over in this regard. They know that this is becoming a serious problem. They had have known that most of the people signing up for MobileMe would already have AppleIDs, and maybe, just maybe, they'd like to only manage one account, rather than two. So, now, here I am, on my iPad, trying to juggle these two accounts. It's utterly ridiculous and frankly unacceptable that after years, literally years, they offer no solution whatsoever. Only workarounds and urge us to essentially look away and act like we don't see the problem.

EricNau · Oct 12, 2011

Unacceptable. It's Apple's flawed system that lead individuals to adopt multiple Apple IDs in the first place. Any MobileMe customer of 3 years has at least two: email@mac.com and email@me.com. Three if they had an Apple ID prior to joining (most probably did).

Apple employees, therefore, have at least four (their company email address). In addition to that, I had one given to me by iTunes Store support for iTunes, and one prior to the usage of email addresses (if I recall correctly, back then it was just a username, but later they required an email address which became your Apple ID).

At last count I have 6 Apple IDs. It's ridiculous. It's probably only a matter of time before Apple gives me another.

ryan.stewie · Oct 12, 2011

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A334)

I activated iCloud on my current gMail Apple ID but they won't let me change my primary login email to the new iCloud @me.com address, even though they are the same Apple ID! Ridiculous!

wordoflife · Oct 12, 2011

That's what I did. I created a new Apple account for iCloud (while I have the other one for iTunes store).

roland.g · Oct 12, 2011

Apple in part created this problem with the .Mac -> MobileMe -> iCloud transitions.

I had an iTools account forever ago, free, that ended @mac.com and eventually became a pay for service called .Mac. This is since 2000/2001.

In 2002-2003 I even worked for Apple and had my .Mac account as my Apple ID as an employee. Then of course it was also my iTMS account. And then the transition to MobileMe began the confusion.

My email is me.com but I sign into Apple.com and iTS under mac.com still. They should have transitioned Apple IDs at that time and not just email addresses. The switch now to iCloud just clouds the whole thing even more and makes it more fragmented and frustrating.

henry72 · Oct 12, 2011

This is sad. Fortunately, I can use my expired MobileMe account for my iCloud account. Gmail for the App Store which I used to share with my parents

WissMAN · Oct 12, 2011

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How quick the praise ends.

Doctor Q · Oct 13, 2011

EricNau said:
Unacceptable. It's Apple's flawed system that lead individuals to adopt multiple Apple IDs in the first place. Any MobileMe customer of 3 years has at least two: email@mac.com and email@me.com. Three if they had an Apple ID prior to joining (most probably did).

I'm in the crowd who had an Apple ID before MobileMe. To make matters worse we have a MobileMe Family Pack so my wife and have could each use a personal Apple ID (matching our email addresses) but use a third Apple ID for our shared calendar and contacts.

Now that Apple's software licenses allow me to install my purchases on Macs I control, my wife wants to share what I purchase, but there seems to be no way to combine our accounts into one. I've asked Apple employees in various Apple retail Stores and I get a different story each time, including some saying that Apple's license permitting me to install purchases on "any computer I control" doesn't apply to my wife's Mac, even though I bought it and manage it, because Apple is actually licensing to each person, not each account. But if that's true they ought to let me share the Apple IDs I have as a person.

audieddie · Oct 13, 2011

I managed a workaround of sorts...

all my purchases were on a non-me.com account, and I while I also have a me.com account, I wanted the iCloud to be associated with the one that had all the purchases associated with it. Of course certain features only work with a me.com account. stuck.

Well....

The me.com account wasn't used that much. I can part with it, but I still wanted all the features on the non-me.com account. I went to the iCloud.com site, used my old gmail account info, and then went to settings/mail. I selected the mail option, and it prompted me to CREATE a me.com account. I tried my old existing one, and it failed, so I simply made a new one.

The new one is now fully functional, all iCloud features now work, and it's directly associated with my old gmail account. in other words, I log in with my old gmail account, but the email account is a proper me.com address, giving me both to work independently, but function together to give me iCloud. THis is actually ideal, since the gmail account I do use for specific purposes and needed to co-exist with the me.com email account. so in effect I am down to one AppleID

thelonelylimo · Oct 13, 2011

ryan.stewie said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A334)

I activated iCloud on my current gMail Apple ID but they won't let me change my primary login email to the new iCloud @me.com address, even though they are the same Apple ID! Ridiculous!

Exact same issue. I called Apple 3 different times attempting to get around it and hoping for a different answer. Unfortunately, there is none.. and this is all I needed for reinsurance.

and by the looks of this.. I don't see a fix in the near future. I hope I'm wrong.

roland.g said:
Apple in part created this problem with the .Mac -> MobileMe -> iCloud transitions.

I had an iTools account forever ago, free, that ended @mac.com and eventually became a pay for service called .Mac. This is since 2000/2001.

In 2002-2003 I even worked for Apple and had my .Mac account as my Apple ID as an employee. Then of course it was also my iTMS account. And then the transition to MobileMe began the confusion.

My email is me.com but I sign into Apple.com and iTS under mac.com still. They should have transitioned Apple IDs at that time and not just email addresses. The switch now to iCloud just clouds the whole thing even more and makes it more fragmented and frustrating.

iBookG4user · Oct 13, 2011

Doctor Q said:
I'm in the crowd who had an Apple ID before MobileMe. To make matters worse we have a MobileMe Family Pack so my wife and have could each use a personal Apple ID (matching our email addresses) but use a third Apple ID for our shared calendar and contacts.

Now that Apple's software licenses allow me to install my purchases on Macs I control, my wife wants to share what I purchase, but there seems to be no way to combine our accounts into one. I've asked Apple employees in various Apple retail Stores and I get a different story each time, including some saying that Apple's license permitting me to install purchases on "any computer I control" doesn't apply to my wife's Mac, even though I bought it and manage it, because Apple is actually licensing to each person, not each account. But if that's true they ought to let me share the Apple IDs I have as a person.

Can't you log in to the Mac App Store with the Apple ID that you want to download the app from, download the app, then log out and log in to the other Apple ID? You would just need to log in to the other Apple ID whenever you want to update an application.

ericvmazzone · Oct 13, 2011

Unacceptable!

This is absolutely unacceptable. All my purchases are on an email that will be going away in a few months, I have a me.com email that I want to use as my appleID. I WILL have all my purchases associated with that me.com account, I AM THE CUSTOMER AND THE CUSTOMER IS ****ALWAYS**** RIGHT. Come on Apple give the customer what they want!

jonnyhart · Oct 13, 2011

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My biggest ball ache is that I live in Finland and have 1 ID for the Finnish store, but also another for the UK store from when I lived there. There are some apps that can only be downloaded from each store and updates have always been a pain (having to log in under each ID for all updates to take place.) Now I have a fairly even split of apps belonging to each ID I can only see misery ahead. For example, yesterday I paid for and downloaded 3 magazines to my iPad using my uk ID. After updating to ios5 and signing in with my Finnish ID, those magazines are no longer available to me and by the time I can change and log in with a the UK account they will be out of date. Thanks. Why can't multiple ID's be associated with a single device? For the live of god, why?!

g.c. · Oct 13, 2011

So I have a MobileMe account and my iTunes account Apple IDs. I found a loophole that worked for me.

I contacted MobileMe live chat support, had them completely close and cancel my account. They said in 24 hours the email will be available for me to choose for use with iCloud.

I backed up all of my emails to my Mac, synced all of my contacts, calendars, etc. to my mac and removed them from my iPhone and iPad. Implemented iCloud syncing for everything but notes and email until my email is available tomorrow.

Does it suck to be without my email for a day? Maybe... but it will all be nice neat and tidy tomorrow

.

Rend It · Oct 13, 2011

g.c. said:
So I have a MobileMe account and my iTunes account Apple IDs. I found a loophole that worked for me.

I contacted MobileMe live chat support, had them completely close and cancel my account. They said in 24 hours the email will be available for me to choose for use with iCloud.

I backed up all of my emails to my Mac, synced all of my contacts, calendars, etc. to my mac and removed them from my iPhone and iPad. Implemented iCloud syncing for everything but notes and email until my email is available tomorrow.

Does it suck to be without my email for a day? Maybe... but it will all be nice neat and tidy tomorrow .

So, are you saying that you're using your iTunes account for the Apple ID, but by canceling your MobileMe account, you could use your old @me.com address with iCloud?

Please post after you attempt this. I'd love to know how it turns out. Still, this is not the same as merging the iTunes ID into the @me.com address, so that @me email equals Apple ID. That would be the more elegant solution.

jacktorrance · Oct 13, 2011

What happens if I change my email address in my iTunes account to the same address used for iCloud? Will updating my apps purchased with the current iTunes ID require logging in using this address?

Essentially, can I change my iTunes loin email and just update apps as normal?

cindyhy · Oct 13, 2011

Why do Apple refuse to do that? This problem has been bugging people (me included) for years. It certainly isn't a technical problem. So is it legal? Do they want to discourage people from getting multiple accounts? Why?

MiataMac · Oct 13, 2011

jacktorrance said:
What happens if I change my email address in my iTunes account to the same address used for iCloud? Will updating my apps purchased with the current iTunes ID require logging in using this address?

Essentially, can I change my iTunes loin email and just update apps as normal?

I don't think you can do that, as the e-mail you use for iCloud is now an AppleID, so it's taken. So you'll need a 3rd address to juggle around with I guess. But yes, your apps etc. are associated with your account, no matter what e-mail address you change it to (except of course e-mail addresses already in use on another AppleID).

----------

Rend It said:
So, are you saying that you're using your iTunes account for the Apple ID, but by canceling your MobileMe account, you could use your old @me.com address with iCloud?

Please post after you attempt this. I'd love to know how it turns out. Still, this is not the same as merging the iTunes ID into the @me.com address, so that @me email equals Apple ID. That would be the more elegant solution.

I read somewhere yesterday that a guy managed to use his old expired MobileMe e-mail address on his new iCloud account, the e-mail address was simply re-activated. So I was thinking of trying to do the same. Contacting MobileMe (livechat) sounds like a good idea, I'll try that and see if it works. Hopefully nobody else will be able to take my @me.com address before I do, after it has been cancelled.

Apple Not Offering Apple ID Merging

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