"C" is for Cloud

I recently asked my FB friends if they used Apple's iCloud email and if they liked it.  I got two positive responses and one negative.  Either no one uses me.com email, or I'm extremely unpopular with my 800+ FB friends.

I tried using my me.com account for a couple weeks.  Here are my pros and cons:


Pros

• cool @me.com email address (I had my firstname.lastname, which I really liked)
• seamless integration with my other Apple products and one less username/password to remember

Cons

• In the tabs of my internet browser, it shows the number of messages in my inbox instead of just the number of unread messages in my inbox.  Super annoying.
• I would need to update all of my other online accounts to send mail to me.com instead of gmail.
• Some online accounts use email as the username and don't allow me to change my username.  For example, to login to my account for mail order prescriptions I have to use my Gmail account and not my @me.com account because the site doesn't allow me to update my username, so now even though I would be using my @me.com account for communications with medco, I still have to log on using my Gmail address.
• Apple doesn't let me change my password to anything I've used previously (in the last year?).  (No one has ever compromised any of my accounts.  I want to set my password to what I want it to be.)
• I couldn't figure out a way to read messages below instead of to the side.  Illustrations below.

side view in iCloud.  read messages to the right.

Outlook example of reading messages below.

The final verdict?  I'll be keeping my Gmail.  I am a little miffed about the new Gmail layout though.  I've done well with their other aesthetic changes, but I really hate the new look.  It's all scrunched up, and the buttons for replying and deleting aren't in good places.  Luckily, I am able to keep the old look for the time being.

To end on a positive note, I do love the concept of iCloud.  Having all of my Apple devices backed up online and synced wirelessly is a huge plus.  Changes I make to my calendar and contacts on my phone show up on my computer and vice versa within seconds, and it's all saved on the cloud too.  Another bonus is the ability to find and remotely lock or erase my Mac or iPhone using iCloud from any computer.

So overall I still love Apple...just not their email.  Hopefully now that they've launched iCloud instead of MobileMe, they'll make some improvements with email, so I can convert completely.

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