Apple to offer iCloud.com email addresses with iOS 6

Alongside the various new features seen in Monday's iOS 6 beta 3 release, Apple revealed that new and existing iCloud users will be getting new email addresses ending in "@iCloud.com" based to their AppleID account names when the mobile operating system rolls out later this year.

The migration to iCloud.com addresses is the second such change Apple product users have seen in the past four years, the first being a 2008 switch from ".Mac" to the soon-to-be defunct ".me" MobileMe service suite.

Apple stopped all MobileMe services on June 30 as the company moved to the more integrated iCloud service which allows for easy syncing between multiple devices. While the transition has not yet been made public, developers were made aware of the upcoming change in Apple's iOS 6 beta 3 that was seeded on Monday. Also revealed in today's change log was expanded settings tweaks for Apple's upcoming Maps app which will make its debut when iOS 6 launches later this fall.

From the update log:

icloud.com email addresses are now available for iCloud mail users. Users signing up for new Apple IDs, or enabling Mail on their iCloud account for the first time, will automatically receive an @icloud.com email address instead of a me.com email address. iCloud users with @me.com addresses that have been used with iOS 6 beta 3 will receive an @icloud.com email address that matches their @me.com address.

Apple's upcoming iOS will feature a revamped Mail app and new iCloud.com email accounts. | Source: Apple

It is unclear if Apple will keep existing .me accounts active after the iCloud.com rollout, but the company still continues such support for legacy .Mac users.

64 Comments

tallest skil 43086 comments · 14 Years

About 12 years ago

Just, Apple… can we merge our old Apple IDs upward? I like how my establishment date is 2003, but I'd love to just use the one account for absolutely everything, you know? Can we still get @mac.com addresses? And if not, does this mean they'll be phasing out @me.com addresses?

macxpress 5902 comments · 16 Years

I wish I could use my .mac address. I really like my .mac address and hated when it went to .me

I agree...why can't they combine these?

maximilian kylen 13 comments · 15 Years

I still use my @mac.com, i really hope we don't have to give it up...

But i love how the two endings are connected (doesn't matter which one i use to log in, send to, log on to iTunes, etc,), i really hope it will be the same with @icloud.com, so we don't have to switch all our emails and tell all our contacts that we have changed address, that would just be a bummer...

Quote:

Originally Posted by macxpress

I got both @mac.com and @me.com and it doesn't matter which one i use to log in with so when the went to @me.com it really didn't bother me at all because it never gave me any issue... :)

zoolook 652 comments · 16 Years

While we're at it, can we associate more than one email with a single account on the app store? Maybe different profiles for different members of the same family?