Apple to Continue Offering Support for Me.com Email After MobileMe Discontinuation

[MacRumors]

As highlighted by TidBITS (via Macworld), Apple has informed the last holdout users still on the company's MobileMe service that they will be able to continue using their Me.com even after MobileMe's June 30 discontinuation, even if they do not fully convert to iCloud. The option, which is detailed on Apple's MobileMe transition guide, will be of particular benefit to those users whose devices aren't compatible with iCloud.

What if I just want to keep using my email on all my devices?
As of May 1, you can choose to keep using your mail after MobileMe ends, even on devices that don't meet the iCloud system requirements. Just go to me.com/move and select the option to keep using your email after MobileMe ends. Once you have completed this short process, your mail will continue to work on devices that don't meet the iCloud requirements after MobileMe ends on June 30th, 2012.

Apple's notice to current MobileMe members was actually detailed by The Mac Observer back on May 1, including screenshots showing the option at me.com/move for users to opt out of moving to the full iCloud service and simply retain access to email and calendars.

Apple's process suggests that only web-based access to Me.com/Mac.com email will be available following the migration, but TidBITS notes that users can bypass Apple's automated iCloud email setup to manually access MobileMe accounts.

In Mail, after moving your address to iCloud, delete your existing MobileMe account: Choose Mail > Preferences, click Accounts, select your MobileMe account in the list on the left, and click the - (minus) button. Then click the + (plus) button to add a new account and fill in your mac.com or me.com address and password. But now hold down Option while clicking Continue. This bypasses Mail's automated setup process (which would configure the account for the MobileMe servers -- not what you want). On the next screen, choose IMAP from the Account Type pop-up menu. Enter imap.mail.me.com for the incoming mail server address, click Continue, and enter smtp.mail.me.com for the outgoing mail server address. Once you've completed the process, Mail in Snow Leopard should be able to check your iCloud mail both now and after MobileMe is turned off.

Most notably, iCloud is not officially compatible with OS X Snow Leopard, leaving some users who systems are not compatible with OS X Lion without access to iCloud. Apple has been trying to push all potential MobileMe users toward iCloud as the MobileMe service heads for discontinuation next month, even offering free copies of Snow Leopard to help users of even older operating systems to move to iCloud-compatible Lion.

Article Link: Apple to Continue Offering Support for Me.com Email After MobileMe Discontinuation

 

[NY Guitarist]

Good news for me.

 

[Xenomorph]

What am I missing here?

No one I know ever got an @me.com email account until we started using iCloud.

 

[newyorksole]

What am I missing here?

No one I know ever got an @me.com email account until we started using iCloud.

MobileMe came out in 2008 thus giving subscribers with .Mac accounts a @Me address.

 

[tremlock]

I'm confused. I got my @me.com when I started iCloud. Now what?

 

[Rocketman]

TidBITS was among my first internet experiences I think circa 1992. I was on BBS and proprietary networks since 1979-80.

 

[RBMaraman]

I'm confused. I got my @me.com when I started iCloud. Now what?

This information doesn't apply to you. This is for MobileMe customers who have not transitioned to iCloud, or may never transition.

 

[John.B]

How about allowing people to consolidate their iCloud IDs with the Apple IDs?

 

[Westyfield2]

How about allowing people to consolidate their iCloud IDs with the Apple IDs?

This.

Got my Apple ID that's got iTunes, App Store, Apple Online Store etc on it, and my MobileMe iCloud ID. Would love to merge them.

 

[jsunma]

Apple's notice to current MobileMe members was actually detailed by The Mac Observer back on May 1, including screenshots showing the option at me.com/move for users to opt out of moving to the full iCloud service and simply retain access to email and calendars.

I'm confused... Does this new policy apply to email as well as calendars as the quoted text from the article indicates? If so, that would be great as those are the only two things I use in mobile.me and would love to avoid the whole icloud (and Lion) thing if those are all I need.

 

[tremlock]

This information doesn't apply to you. This is for MobileMe customers who have not transitioned to iCloud, or may never transition.

Excellent. Thank you

 

[BreuerEditor]

confusion...

I've had my MobileMe email since it debuted years ago. Now the question is if I choose to upgrade to iCloud, does my MobileMe email just go away and now I have to use my iCloud for iTunes purchases? Just a little confused what will happen with either of the choices on the me.com site...

 

[foodog]

Why is this even a story....? my .mac email address still works.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I've had my MobileMe email since it debuted years ago. Now the question is if I choose to upgrade to iCloud, does my MobileMe email just go away and now I have to use my iCloud for iTunes purchases? Just a little confused what will happen with either of the choices on the me.com site...

I had a mobile me email address since 2010 and moved over to iCloud last year. Still works fine!

 

[Morod]

Fascinating

I'm on SL 10.6.8 and have access to iCloud email and Calendar. In System Preferences>MobileMe, under the Account tab, there was a button to push to start using iCloud instead of MM. So I did. Hopefully this will continue after June 30th as I don't want to move to Lion.
In System Prefs, I still have the MobileMe icon and not iCloud.
I dunno.

 

[MacFly123]

MobileMe came out in 2008 thus giving subscribers with .Mac accounts a @Me address.

Why no @icloud.com? Would that just make things messy and they want to keep it simple with @me.com?

How about allowing people to consolidate their iCloud IDs with the Apple IDs?

This.

Got my Apple ID that's got iTunes, App Store, Apple Online Store etc on it, and my MobileMe iCloud ID. Would love to merge them.

AMEN!

Why is this even a story....? my .mac email address still works.

Ya me too. It is kind of annoying honestly. I wish they would merge it all with your Apple ID like they said above!

 

[FlatlinerG]

For the record, an iCloud account IS an AppleID. Apple will not be providing a means of merging multiple AppleID's, so do yourselves a favour and just don't create more than one.

On topic though, Me.com emails will still work if you follow the correct process outlined in an email sent out to all MobileMe subscribers.

 

[13astion]

This.

Got my Apple ID that's got iTunes, App Store, Apple Online Store etc on it, and my MobileMe iCloud ID. Would love to merge them.

Hmmm, may have been how your first accessed iCloud, because I used my old MobileMe/iTunes ID and it worked with no problem.

I have one "Apple" ID for them all. (Even same for the Apple Developer site.)

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones!

 

[swingerofbirch]

Not to be bragadocious, but I did actually post this information here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1365403/

before it became public information.

It was a small "get," but "gets" no matter how big or small seem to be something worth sharing in the Apple world. I had a similar small get about Auto Quit that I post in the Mountain Lion forum.

 

[Nostromo]

What is iCloud good for?

Do you back up your most important files? How safe are they, if you can do that?

Or is it just your iTunes database online, so you can access it from all your devices?

(doesn't this cost airtime when you access it through phone or computer? Or is it WiFi?)

 

[SeaFox]

I got this email and didn't do anything about it. I didn't see the point. What's to stop me from just moving my MobileMe account to iCloud with the website and just using the email and ignoring the rest from then on? It's just a mail account after all. No reason I can't just manually configure it as described here.

 

[wackymacky]

It is just a shame Thant it also didn't say that those who didn't want to migrate could keep iDisk.

 

[BerryOfTheAub]

Dam

Wish I had know this, despite the hiccup at the beginning @me was so much better when you paid for it. Everyone likes free things but this instant since it was moved to iCloud it is crap, slow alway getting errors. I fact I think my email is broken more then it works:mad

 

[Wild-Bill]

"iCloud is not officially compatible with Snow Leopard....."
Yet if I was running Windows Vista or Windows 7 I would be. Totally UNSAT, Apple.
Windows' previous OS is compatible, but Apple's isn't?
Hey, guess what, Apple? I HATE Lion (I suspect I'm not alone here) and it will never, EVER see the light of day on my Mac Pro.
It's a sad day when Apple supports VISTA over one of its own operating systems.

 

[NightFox]

For the record, an iCloud account IS an AppleID. Apple will not be providing a means of merging multiple AppleID's, so do yourselves a favour and just don't create more than one.

But it's not just about people madly setting up new Apple IDs just because they can. Loads of us are already in this boat through no fault of our own. We set up Apple IDs years ago for iTunes, Dev accounts, Apple Store purchases etc using our 'non-Apple' email addresses. Then came .mac, MobileMe and iCloud so we ended up with separate @me.com email addresses which have now become the IDs for our iCloud accounts. We want to be able to associate our 'old' Apple IDs with out iCloud IDs, that's all! I'm fed up of signing in to stuff on my iPad and having to scratch my head working out whether I should be signing in to my Apple ID or my iCloud account.