Why does iCloud require a DIFFERENT .me address?

Evernote rules! And to think their engineers figured out a way to accomplish syncing to all my devices (MAC, iPhone and iPad) without forcing me to create a whole new @ME email account which I already have and Mountain Lion and iOS won't let me use. haha

I love Apple but I gotta say they hosed this one up! 😮

The workaround described by Johnmc Boston a few articles up works on the laptop, but not on the iPad. Although there does exist a "Mail, Contacts, and Calendars" preference on the iPad, attempting to turn Notes on to iCloud results in the same ridiculous prompt for a .me account.

This is FUBAR.

Johnmc Boston wrote:

Managed to find a work-around.

Heat to systerm preferences -> mail, Contacts & Calendars.

Click on icloud there and it will let you sync at least Notes without asking for an address.

I tried that and it appears to work...but doesn't. You get a confirmation dialogue asking if you want to merge Notes, click the Merge button and everything seems OK, but go to iCloud.com, click Notes and you get the same error about needing an e-mail address.

Go back to System Preferences->Mail, Contacts & Calendars->iCloud and you find that Notes is once again unchecked (note that you need to exit System Preferences for the check mark to disappear).

DG1103 wrote:

Apple's answer, via the Genius Bar at the 5th Ave Store in NYC, is as follows:

"You have to use a differnent @me.com e-mail address because Notes syncing is designed to remain compatible with Lion (10.7). Even though it is inconvenient, you just have to make up a new address solely for the purpose of syncing Notes. You don't have to ever use the address/log in/check mail; just type it into your iPhone once and Notes will sync."

Once you enter this address and turn on Notes syncing in the iCloud System Preference panel on your computer, and in the iCloud Settings panel on your iPhone, Notes will sync. You will then have two Notes accounts on your phone, "iCloud" and "On My iPhone." For new notes to sync, make sure you switch the default account to "iCloud" in the Notes settings on your phone.

Unfortunately, this will only sync new notes going forward. I have not been able to get my existing notes to sync, other than by copying each one and pasting into a new note (and deleting the old one). If you were syncing notes under 10.7, you might be able to change the account the notes are associated with (i.e. move them from "on my phone" to "iCloud') using the Mail application on your computer, but if you have not synced notes before I think you're out of luck.

Thanks for posting this, but I have to say that this is monumentally crap. The whole point of iCloud is to seamlessly sync your data.

What happens when no-one (or hardly anyone) is still using Lion? Will they change it (probably meaning everyone has to change their settings) or will we be left with this legacy stupidity?

You can not use Googles services in iCloud, simple as that. iCloud has it's own mail addresses (also used for notes) and they end in .me or .mac.

To access gmail go to www.gmail.com.

Just tried and I'm getting the same thing you are. Why you would need an email account to have notes in the cloud is beyond me. I have no clue how they are related. Again, evernote for me. Why Apple is making shared notes so difficult is beyond me...

What do you expect from a company that still doesn't even have categories for Notes? Whereas Microsoft Outlook has always had them, Apple somehow thinks that you want your recipes, meeting notes, shopping lists, and everything else in one jumbled pile with no organization.

A lot of these problems stem from Apple's asinine insistence that your Apple ID be an E-mail address. This is an amateurish, cumbersome, and dangerous policy:http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use-e-mail-address-as. html

I had a similar problem. I had iCloud set up and created a name@icloud.com account to sync notes. At some point my Mail app stopped checking iCloud mail (re-adding the account didn't work because the incoming server field was grayed out and inaccessible) and my iPhone stopped syncing notes. I tried to disable/re-enable Notes and Mail in iCloud preferences on my Mac with no success. I could not access either on the iCloud website either, which kept telling me I needed an iCloud email address (which of course I already created).

At this point, I backed up Calendar, Contacts, and Notes (via email sharing, luckily I only just started using the app and had only 2 notes) on my Mac and signed out of iCloud, deleting everything. I then restarted (just in case) my Mac and signed into iCloud. To use Notes, it asked me to create an iCloud email again and when I entered the one I had previously created, it informed that the email was already taken (really?!!). I decided to not create a new iCloud email -- God knows what would have happened then, since technically, as I understand it, there is to be only one iCloud email address. Instead, I went to iCloud.com where I attempted to open the Notes app. The first attempt resulted in an error, which I sent to Apple. Then I opened Mail and for some reason, it opened! I then opened the Notes app and... voila! It opened, showing both of my notes, with all the folder structures intact. At this point, I went back to the System Preferences on my Mac and enabled both Mail and Notes in iCloud preferences. It set up without asking me to create a new iCloud email. At this point, the iPhone began syncing agian.

I don't know why there was an issue in the first place (and it seems Apple is not shedding light on this), but signing out of iCloud (deleting everything) and signing back in on the Mac (with an additional step of going to iCloud.com to open the Mail app) worked for me. I hope this helps someone else in the same boat.

Not sure if anyone ever caught on to the original poster's problem, but I'll address it, since this thread was just bumped.

His problem is, his @me address, moved from MobileMe, and his non-apple address (as outlined "xx@xxxxxxxx.com"), are two separate apple IDs. When he signed into icloud in his system preferences with the non-apple address, and checked off mail, it doesn't see his @me.com address, since it's a separate apple id. That's why it's asking him to setup a new @me address. When he put in his @me address to use, of course it will say it's taken, because it's already an @me apple id carried over from mobileme.

Bottom line is, he has two separate apple ids. One is the non-apple address and the other is his old @me address from mobileme.

From a fairly surface read of other posts I had the impression that others experienced a problem similar to mine. I see that the OP had a different issue. Thank you for clarifying that. Either way, I hope both of these issues are able to be addressed by the previous posts.

I too have the same problem. I am actually signed into my @icloud.com address, and my account shows that I am signed in to my @icloud.com address, yet it will not let my sync notes - it says I have to be signed in to iCloud to sync notes (but I AM!) unless I create a new second @icloud.com address. What is going on?

I have tried many of the fixes listed here and on other forums and I can't get it to work.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I ran into the same issue now (in late 2015). I solved it by opening the Notes app on my Mac and clicking "Add accounts" from the menu. There I was able to use my regular gmail icloud account, rather than the required @icloud.com. After doing that, I notes are automatically included in the icloud sync list.