Can I take advantage of icloud with gmail?

[jabingla2810]

When I upgrade to iOS5 next week, will I need to create a new email address to use all this new iCloud stuff?

Or does that only apply to the email, contacts and calendar side of things?

I only ask because a few years ago I tried MobileMe, which worked ok, but I used gmail for my apple ID (buying apps etc), with no way to merge accounts.

I'm not the sort of person who wants, or needs, to be managing two email accounts.

So will photo stream, docs, iTunes, and message (not strictly icloud) all work with my current email address?

 

[jbg232]

You can use icloud for what you want to - in your case you don't need the email features (because gmail is in the cloud as well) so you can use gmail for your email as you do now and use icloud for contacts and calendar. Just disable the icloud setting for email.

 

[rstark18]

Just an issue I'm running into as a Gmail user. In Gmail it is nice to have all your contacts sync up everywhere. If you use iCloud for contacts, any updates to your contact on your iPhone won't transfer over to Gmail contacts on any other computer/device. Trying to figure a good way around this. I want to sync contacts to iCloud and then push them over to Google as well. If I try doing this via iTunes I see a message that it will probably result in duplicates. I'll try it any since I made a backup of my Google contacts.

 

[thelookingglass]

Just an issue I'm running into as a Gmail user. In Gmail it is nice to have all your contacts sync up everywhere. If you use iCloud for contacts, any updates to your contact on your iPhone won't transfer over to Gmail contacts on any other computer/device. Trying to figure a good way around this. I want to sync contacts to iCloud and then push them over to Google as well. If I try doing this via iTunes I see a message that it will probably result in duplicates. I'll try it any since I made a backup of my Google contacts.

I think the answer is to not use iCloud for contacts. I'm in the same boat as you and I use Gmail to sync contacts across all my devices. When I get iCloud, I'm switching everything over. It's either one or the other, otherwise you'll have to sync manually.

 

[rstark18]

I think the answer is to not use iCloud for contacts. I'm in the same boat as you and I use Gmail to sync contacts across all my devices. When I get iCloud, I'm switching everything over. It's either one or the other, otherwise you'll have to sync manually.

I'd like to use iCloud but based on a test I just did I don't think it's going to work. So without the ability to get my contacts over to Gmail regularly it won't work. Also FYI, my date fields did not migrate to iCloud in my testing. The way I did it was to:
Disable Exchange Contacts (no contacts on phone)
Enable iTunes to sync with Google (makes contacts local to phone)
Turned on iCloud Contacts (everything migrated perfect except for all date fields)

 

[androiphone]

yeah if you use gmail for contacts and calendar sync dont use iCloud for the same, just leave those options turned off in settings.

to OP, your apple ID is your icloud account they are one and the same. when iOS 5 comes out to sign into iCloud you sign in with your apple ID, (ie your xxx@gmail.com and the apple password) - that's it, if you then want a free @me.com email you just turn on mail in icloud settings as pictured here:

more screen shots

just turn on the stuff you actually want to sync to icloud, so in my case I sync my contacts and calendar to my gmail I would leave those turned off, but I would have icloud mail turned on as I want a @me.com email.