Is iCloud Mail currently down?

Thanks for the tips. One of the first things I did was check system status, as I indicated in my original post. Contacts and Calendar are working fine when I log in to iCloud.com, just not the webmail.

It is unlikely to be a browser problem, since I'm getting the error in both the Mac Mail client and from iCloud.com using Safari, but just to be sure, I've tried Chrome and Firefox and I get the same error with just the Mail feature of iCloud.com.

In 20+ years, I have never had so many problems with any Apple product as I have with iCloud.

Thanks again for the tip. I will try contacting support to see if they can tell me what's going on. It seems to me that if there really is some routine account maintenance that causes these errors, it would make sense for Apple to craft an error message to that effect rather than the "rejected password" message that I get from the Mail client or the "missing resources" message that I get from the webmail version. It would save a lot of headaches for the end user.

I agree completely, Mobile Me was very reliable, and so far iCloud seems very unreliable, not to mention lacking in many of the useful features of Mobile Me.

To make matters worse, you cannot get phone support for iCloud unless you have a hardware device with an active AppleCare package. I've never needed AppleCare in the past because I'm quite competent with troubleshooting my own problems and using forums to find the answers I need. With iCloud, however, we cannot troubleshoot anything ourselves, and so we're left wondering what's going on and watching the completely unhelpful iCloud status page. I'm reluctant to pay for support since according to the forums I've looked at, there's nothing support can do for this, and you just have to wait it out.

For these reasons, it seems to me that iCloud support ought to be available without AppleCare, especially for problems like this that are clearly on Apple's end. In fact, I think I'll call them and see what they say to this. I'll report back with their answer.

OK. Reporting back on what I've learned from Apple support:

1. Apple agreed to offer iCloud support at no charge even though I did not have an active AppleCare package. My impression is that they made this exception because they recognize that iCloud still has bugs. Your mileage may vary.
2. The first rep performed triage on my issue, and then passed me over to an email specialist who was able to restore my email access. In short, Apple is aware of this problem, and though at the moment they are still researching what causes it, they were able to fix my account in about 10 mins by placing my account in "troubleshooting mode" and then resetting my iCloud password.
3. This bug is annoying to be sure, but I was pleased with how tech support handled the issue. I would recommend that others who encounter this problem contact Apple and explain what's going on. As I said, your mileage may vary, but I for one was pleased with how they handled it. The email specialist was excellent.

Just reporting what the Apple rep who helped me said: In his experience, resetting the password yourself doesn't always fix the issue, but when tech support resets the password for you on their end, after having placed the account in troubleshooting mode, the issue is resoved and also will not recur. So if you're running into this problem multiple times, I'd encourage you to call Apple.