Why can't I use my iCloud email address as my Apple ID

"The company has $203 billion in cash on its balance sheet, becoming the first corporation ever to cross the $200 billion mark."

[ http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/22/investing/apple-stock-cash-earnings/ ]

It's been 3 years and 3 months since the original post to this forum.

3 years, $200 billion in cash, access to the world's greatest genius programmers and Apple could not fix an account/login consolidation issue?

They couldn't email existing accounts a unique code to the existing Apple membership accounts, giving them a finite amount of time, to access a special webpage to consolidate their accounts (must have the valid pw for each account ready).

They cry "security" and legacy database complexity as the reason. Seriously?

A whole new Apple data center/server farm is $1 billion, they can't spare the pocket change to dedicate an entirely new monster-sized server to fix this?

Perhaps, my FaceTime that was broken with El Capitan might work, too. (After an hour on the phone, Apple support said the problem was on their end, but they never emailed or called back with a solution. Reverting to Yosemite would not have solved the problem.)

Shoobirdy, although Apple has no intent on fixing their problems, misery loves company.

Regardless of fantastic products, poor management always leads to poor customer service (disgruntled employees) and the downfall of many big companies.

"All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again."

The king has died, the magic is gone, and Camelot has become just another crumbling ancient castle. It's a tale we can tell our grandchildren of a land that once had magical devices, nearly mind-reading user interfaces, with spectacular announcements and major technology advancements.

Our children won't believe us.

HERE I THOUGHT APPLE WAS THE GREATEST ! I JUST DITCHED MY WINDOWS SYSTEM AND BOUGHT A MAC - AND NOW AM BEING TOLD I HAVE TO KEEP USING A DEFUNCT GMAIL ADDRESS AS MY APPLE ID -- HOW LUDICROUS IS THAT ?!?!?!

I AM NOT PLEASED TO SAY THE LEAST !!

I GUESS THE ONLY WAY TO CANCEL OUT OF MY APPLE ID ACCOUNT AND START A NEW ONE - AND SEE IF THAT WORKS !!

<Edited by Host>

Maybe you can explain what it is you are wanting to do, exactly? If you have an old email address that you no longer want to use for your Apple ID, there is nothing preventing you from changing that to another email address (as long as it is not an Apple-domain email address like @me, @mac, @iCloud - which are already Apple IDs in and of themselves).

So, what is it that you want to do?

And please stop typing in all caps. It is considered yelling, and it is rude.

And the last thing you want to do is to set up a brand new Apple ID, since all of your purchases under the existing ID will remain with that existing ID.....

Cheers,

GB

gail from maine wrote:

Maybe you can explain what it is you are wanting to do, exactly? If you have an old email address that you no longer want to use for your Apple ID, there is nothing preventing you from changing that to another email address (as long as it is not an Apple-domain email address like @me, @mac, @iCloud - which are already Apple IDs in and of themselves).

I'm afraid that's exactly what they want to do - people who have a non-Apple address as their ID, and want to change it to their @icloud.com address so that the login is the same as the email address they use, are incensed because they can't do this. As we know this is Apple's decision, though we don't know whether it's a technical issue which prevents it being possible; it' also may not be a good idea because if you don't have a contact address which isn't the same as your @icloud.com address serious problems can ensue. However attempts to explain this are consistently met with abuse (as if we had any control over it) and I doubt it's worth getting involved in the discussion and trying to explain this (again).

Unfortunately not - I quote from that page:

You can change your Apple ID to any other email address you control, as long as it's not already in use as an Apple ID. If your email address ends with @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com, you might not be able to change your Apple ID. You also won't see Change Email Address on your account page.

For 'might not' I think you can safely read 'will not'.

I'm sure that is a nice solution to a problem somewhere, but it does not address the original issue.

Being a Mac user since Performa days, I have 3 different Apple email logons, each one has authorized a wide variety of apps and music. All the original posters and relies, have the same issue. It is very common for me to encounter "wrong password" errors on my Mac that can be resolved only by entering an old account and password.

When I was unable to use FaceTime or Messenger a year ago, the Apple tech (escalated to manager) in phone support, after making me add. delete and update all sorts of files including El Capitan itself, creating a new email address, and accessing my computer remotely, he couldn't find a solution and said it was in their server and was probably caused by the different accounts under my name and there was no known solution and he'd contact me. He never called back and not even wrote.

The issue of Apple's inability to combine accounts (reason is "security") is an old one and a tiring one. If the reason is security, there should still be a way to have a live person verify the caller and combine them from Apple's side.

The inability to merge different accounts containing purchased material, particularly movies, isn't so much security or an Apple decision but a limitation imposed by the owners of the content. They don't want people being able to transfer ownership of items from one account to another for fairly obvious reasons, and merging would come to the same thing. The main complaint in this thread - the inability to change an existing non-Apple email address being used as an ID to the account's @icloud.com address - isn't really related to your point at all. Your inability to use Facetime or Messenger sounds more like a technical problem at Apple's end rather than anything to do with multiple logins; but as far as purchased movies etc. are concerned any purchases remain tied to the account which made them (that account can change its logon ID and remain the same account) and that situation is most unlikely ever to change.

You're right. I just got off the phone with apple care.

He even tried to walk me through the process to see if it works. We went to the appleid.com page and to the part where it says "change email id", but, when I try to change the email id from my gmail.com to iCloud.com, a pop up says, you cannot have iCloud.com as your apple id. And the apple technician says "it is what it is. Once you set up an ID, you're stuck with it forever." I didn't know whether to get mad at him or just laugh at the absurdity.

It's not so much the reason as the actual problem. An email address should never be the actual account - or presented as such - but rather the account should be an independent entity that can be linked to any email address. However, I'm pretty sure Apple agrees with this, and doesn't consider the current situation ideal. One figures that Apple wants people to be immersed in the Apple ecosystem, and making it impossible for people to ditch Gmail for iCloud is probably not something Apple wants. But as mentioned earlier, there are backend issues that are apparently very hard to fix.

In any case, I'll just be checking this thread every once in a while and hope it'll be fixed eventually.

This unfortunately is not the case. If there is a problem with your iCloud account, Apple will send an email to the email used for the account id. To clear up the issue, Apple will send a verification code to that email address as well.

Just happened to my wife and I. For an unknown reason there was an issue with our iCloud account. An email was sent to our dormant Apple ID email address which we never saw. After 2 days I set up the old account and found the initial email in there. After responding, a verification code was sent to that address to allow us to sign into iCloud again.

This is a continuation of a really poor implementation by Apple. Irrespective of that, you need to use a non-iCloud email address that you will hold onto and maintain.

I thought I was the only one that got bugged by this! I too want to just use my iCloud email as my login. I don't want to have to use my gmail. Even though I still have full access to this gmail email, I just wanna use my iCloud.

You can use your iCloud email as your login. Anywhere you are asked to log in your Apple ID, you can log in the iCloud ID that is attached to that Apple account. They are completely interchangeable. If you sign into iTunes with your iCloud.com email address, then when you select "View My Account" you will see your gmail Apple ID. Just start using your iCloud.com ID instead.

Cheers,

GB

It's 2016 and it is still an issue. I've got several tech support calls and emails because of this issue and it is causing me lots of bugs (The system is getting confused by different emails being used differently in old accounts and my current account. One example where this becomes a privacy concern is that it shows me other people's devices and cases and likewise misses my devices depending where I log in).

It's definitely hard to comprehend from a users perspective and since it's been 4+ years when this issue was reported it is also hard to understand from a technology perspective.

"And it is still an issue" implies there's something not working as intended. It would be like saying clicking the apple on a Mac causing a menu to appear is an issue. It's not. That is how it works. It's not likely to ever change.

If you have multiple Apple IDs, you've also created your own mess, not Apple. I doubt you're actually experiencing any bugs, but if you want to explore that, you should create a different thread for it.