Is it true that After March 30, 2015, AOL will no longer support your ability to sign in to the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store or did I just receive a phishing email?

This appears to be a legit Apple emailing. I have family who have received the same and have been researching.

I believe this goes waaaay way back to earlier days of the iTunes rollout when, if memory serves, an authentic AOL Username could be used as an Apple ID. Since then, it has become common (required?) that an Apple ID is an authentic "email address". The difference between a Username and an email address being the "@aol.com" designator.

It appears that Apple (and AOL) are requiring anyone that has or had an iTunes account using an AOL "Username only" Apple ID (without the @aol.com email designator) to update their Apple ID. I believe it to be as simple as designating an authentic "email address" as your new Apple ID.

If you already use an email address as your Apple ID, i.e. username@aol.com, then I believe there is nothing further you need to do.

If you had at one time a Username-only iTunes account that you have perhaps forgotten about and abandoned, then you got this email.

If I am incorrect here, I'm sure someone will speak up and let us know.

I hope this is helpful.

d.i.

More info here... Convert your AOL Username to an Apple ID - Apple Support

Thanks Gail and DIJ. That's cleared things up.

Most welcome! 🙂

Cheers,

GB

I received this email as well. What's interesting to me is that the sender's email address is do_not_reply@new.itunes.com. Is that even a legit Apple email address? I'd expect to see @apple.com if the email were coming from Apple.

And while I now know that the AOL conversion by March 31, 2015 is real, I do take issue with another factor in emails like this. I was addressed with a "Dear iTunes Customer" line. That immediately caused a red flag to go up in my mind. As a rule, I trash any messages of this nature if they don't address me by my real name. And Apple DEFINITELY has my real name! So if the email is truly legit, why doesn't Apple use my real name?

I'm positive that the email is a phishing scam. Why? Because it tells me to visit support.apple.com/kb/HT204268, but the code under that hyperlink actually would take me to a page under the new.itunes.com site. So if this email is legit, why would they show a legitimate support article address, but have a user's click take them to a completely different host site and page?

In summary, and I'm sorry I made this so long, I think everyone should use caution. The text in the email is absolutely true. Users who have used AOL screen names to access Apple services DO need to update their accounts! But this email coming from new.itunes.com, not addressing me by my real name and then including a cloaked link (looks legit, but leads to a completely different destination than expected) seems VERY fishy (or phishy? -yeah...I had to go there and be punny) to me.

I hope this helps someone out there avoid having their account compromised!