iCloud has now come out of beta and just requires you to update/turn it on in your device.

You'll need Lion or iOS 5 to use anything but Find my iPhone though.

Can't wait, I've been waiting to dump gmail. I may go to my mc.com email address now instead

Will have to see what it's like. The integration into iOS and Lion has to be better than Gmail though.

As of right now, it only allows you to migrate if you're a registered developer. Not quite there yet .

Jon

Ah, that explains why it works for me then

Sorry

It appears, at this point, this is where I get left behind.

It was a blast. Good times. Enjoy the future.

Now, to set up an personal email account somewhere else before they shut off MobileMe next year.

I don't think they're shutting off me.com email domains are they?

I don't know for certain. My account has been extended until August 2012. After that, who knows?

I think me.com is safe as you get a me.com email address when you register for iCloud.

What happens if I don't register? For example, if I don't move to Lion, the iCloud will be a closed book to me.

There are still web interfaces. And I suspect the email will actually still be IMAP. I suspect if you don't want to use the syncing stuff and just use it as email, that will still work.

Jon

I never use the web interface. Email gets dumped in Mail.

I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here. I've been a .Mac, now MobileMe, soon to be iCloud subscriber since 2005. I like my dotMac email address. It's nice and simple, and easy to tell people.

Currently, I have no intention of moving to Lion. There's nothing there I need, and it breaks some significant amounts of the software I use to earn a crust (and which I can't replace and/or afford to upgrade). I don't own an iDevice. iCloud, therefore, is not really going to be useful to me. Apple has taken my cash for five or more years, and then just arbitrarily closed down a service I use, because I don't meet their criteria as an end user, ie not upgrading to an OS with features I don't need.

Incidentally, I can carry on regardless if I shift over to the Windows Vista or 7 laptops we own. Just not on my Snow Leopard Mac.

I understand the point you're making (I use certain services that won't translate from Mobile me to iCloud too), however as far as I know, the 'have a mac.com email address and access it via Mail on a mac' will still work with iCloud. Not having an iCloud account and not using those features - which you will get for free remember - because you don't get the other features that Mobile Me used to have rather seems a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Jon

I don't want to cut off my nose, but equally I can't afford to upgrade to Lion.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I may be able to catch up sometime, but once they switch off support for Snow Leopard (while still supporting five year old PC OSes, mind), I will lose access - even though it's free. Is that fair? Why can't Apple continue to support Snow Leopard/Leopard with iCloud?

I'm sorry, I'm obviously not making myself clear. The point is, for the email features specifically, I don't think you have to. The email address existing isn't dependent on what OS you're running and Mail in Snow Leopard talks to MobileMe on a standard - IMAP - which I don't think they're going to drop because, even in Lion, Mail can't really talk anything else (and pretty much all the other ways of doing it are proprietary to some other company anyway). I would bet actual money on Mail in iCloud supporting IMAP. In fact, I'd bet actual money on it being exactly the same servers running exactly the same mail server software behind the scenes. Therefore, I fully expect leopard\Snow Leopard Mail to connect to iCloud just as well as it does to Mobile Me.

Put it this way - if you went to Apple's website next summer when Mobile Me disappears and said 'change my Mobile Me account to an iCloud account' I would be amazed if getting your @mac.com email via Mail in L or SL stopped working. I'd be utterly flabbergasted.

Yes, you'll lose the other stuff but you're going to lose that anyway. And there's a load of stuff you won't/can't use but then as far as I know you don't use any of that stuff now so no loss.

iCloud won't provide as much functionality to you as Mobile Me does. No argument about that. However in the case of email I think you're mistaken in believing that it won't carry on working if you don't move to Lion.

Jon

That doesn't answer my question about what happens if I don't sign up for iCloud. In fact, I can't find any information from Apple on this. I guess I'll have to wait for the "details and instructions".

OK, but let's pretend that iCloud doesn't (and never will) exist.

What would happen if you chose not to sign up to MobileMe next year? I would guess that you wouldn't have access to your MobileMe email?

Surely this is just exactly the same?

There is no word yet (AFAIK) that states definitively whether or not you will be able to access iCloud without Lion/iOS5 so at the moment the complaint is speculative.

I can't imagine Apple would stop iCloud access for everyone who decides not to upgrade to Lion. Especially given the Windows access.

Surely it would be better to find out whether you will have access than to just arbitrarily complain at what may or may not be a problem?

I think these will help...
http://www.macstories.net/news/configur ... w-leopard/
http://castelliweb.com/2011/06/icloud-m ... w-leopard/

There are more links on Google.