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Desktops (Apple) The Internet Apple

Twelve Years Later, Apple Is Still Trying To Erase Mac.com Email Addresses (engadget.com) 36

Posted by BeauHD from the Apple-artifacts dept.
Apple is steadily removing references to the old @mac.com and slightly less old @me.com addresses from its support documents. AppleInsider reports: It used to be that if your email addressed ended in @mac.com, you were telling the world that you are an Apple user. Now while it's only that part of the world which is extremely geeky, you're actually telling them that you were an Apple user on or before July 9, 2008. This email address was once championed by Apple as part of its iTools service back in 2000, and if you still have one, you have some bruises from the days of iTools, .Mac, and MobileMe before you got to today's iCloud. If your email ends in @mac.com then you got it somewhere between 2000 and 2008. If it ends in @me.com, you got it during the briefer opportunity between then and 2012. To be exact, you have still got an @mac.com address because you had it and were actively using it on July 8, 2008, plus you kept your MobileMe account and - there's more - you moved to iCloud before August 1, 2012.
[...]
Your Apple ID is tied to an email address and Apple gives you some flexibility about this, because it recognizes that we sometimes lose access to a previous address. You can change the address associated with your Apple ID and there's a current support document about how and why you might do that. For some years, though, that page has said you're out of luck if you want to change to an @mac.com or @me.com address. You can't do it unless you somehow already have that address associated with your account. And then in late August 2020, even that helpful information is gone. That same support page still lists what you can do with third-party email addresses. But gone are any references to @mac.com and @me.com.
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Twelve Years Later, Apple Is Still Trying To Erase Mac.com Email Addresses More

Twelve Years Later, Apple Is Still Trying To Erase Mac.com Email Addresses

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  • Bigly Silly (Score:1, Interesting)

    by chriscozi ( 1686002 )
    Have one. Use it. Has always worked great with nearly 0 spam. Maybe the original agreement didn't let them use your data the way they want? Pry it from my cold dead fingers. :-) First Post!

  • It's not just the Apple ID (Score:3)

    by smoot123 ( 1027084 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @08:02PM (#60460500)

    Your Apple ID is tied to an email address and Apple gives you some flexibility about this, because it recognizes that we sometimes lose access to a previous address.

    I'm sure it's about more than your Apple ID. We all use our email addresses as user names for any number of sites. If I'm registered as stevejobs@mac.com 100 different places, it's difficult to transition them all to some new address. It's much easier to just keep using it, even for new signups.

    My wife uses an email address from an ISP signed up with in, geez, 1998? The company got acquired and acquired again. The original company vanished at least 15 years ago. I still can't convince her she really, really ought to move to a more permanent, more mobile address, one not tied to our home internet service account. She just does not want to remember two email addresses and which one she used at any given site, so she keeps using the same ol' address at site after site.

    • I use those as my go-to site registrations. Easy to remember.
      What I don't understand is why get rid of them?
      What could be cooler than a short easy to say-over-the-phone e-mail address. both mac.com and me.com are short memorable. What nicer than icloud.
      How does it harm or cost apple anything to have me.com and mac.com addresses active. They are just synonyms for icloud servers, not separate things.

      • What could be cooler than a short easy to say-over-the-phone e-mail address. both mac.com and me.com are short memorable.

        LOL Depends on your definition of cool.

        Mine ends with my personal domain which *no one* gets. It does give me plenty of opportunity for conversation however as it's associated with my writing.

        But yes, memorable it ain't to most folk.

      • What could be cooler than a short easy to say-over-the-phone e-mail address.

        I think iCloud is a little easer to pass along over phone than Mac.com, where some people might spell it "mack"...

        I agree that me.com is super short and easy to use though, so I could see people preferring to give that out. I don't think iCloud.com is bad at all though, I mostly end up using that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

          eyecloud? ayecloud?

          • Ok fair point, though enough people know what an iPhone is I would guess most of them would understand it to be a single i...

            However you have convinced me it is at least as potentially unclear as Mac.com, especially if you are talking to someone from Scotland. :-)

            As you noted, me.com is probably the clearest!

  • Ohh, is that what it was? A Mac user? All this time I thought it signified one was gangsta.

  • Who cares (Score:3)

    by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @10:11PM (#60460670)
    How is this any different than my @hotmail.com address? Doesn't everyone have a gmail account by now anyway?

    • Slashdot post about current events

      Response: "Ugh. Is this even news for nerds?

      Slashdot post about obscure tech history or trivia

      Response: "Ugh. Who even cares about this stuff?

    • No, I definitely donâ(TM)t have a gmail account. Why would I want one?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The issue seems to be that Apple had an email service, decided it didn't want an email service and shut it down. But people had used its email service to create Apple accounts and for some reason they can't now change them to some other email address.

      Rather than fix this problem Apple is simply trying to purge all mention of it from the record.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The issue seems to be that Apple had an email service, decided it didn't want an email service and shut it down. But people had used its email service to create Apple accounts and for some reason they can't now change them to some other email address.

        Rather than fix this problem Apple is simply trying to purge all mention of it from the record.

        So, Apple's telling it's users that they used their email address incorrectly?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        The issue seems to be that Apple had an email service, decided it didn't want an email service and shut it down. But people had used its email service to create Apple accounts and for some reason they can't now change them to some other email address.

        Rather than fix this problem Apple is simply trying to purge all mention of it from the record.

        No, Apple's email service is still running. Apple hasn't shut it down.

        All Apple is doing is purging any reference to @mac.com and @me.com from their support pages - y

  • Your Apple ID is tied to an email address and Apple gives you some flexibility about this, because it recognizes that we sometimes lose access to a previous address.

    Posers. I have an Apple ID that's so old it's not an e-mail address.

    (I also have mac and hotmail addresses; actually, technically my hotmail address was originally a rocketmail address)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Bongo ( 13261 )

      Your Apple ID is tied to an email address and Apple gives you some flexibility about this, because it recognizes that we sometimes lose access to a previous address.

      Posers. I have an Apple ID that's so old it's not an e-mail address.

      (I also have mac and hotmail addresses; actually, technically my hotmail address was originally a rocketmail address)

      I have an Apple ID that's so old it's a desk accessory in System 1.

  • I registered my own domain in early 1997 and I've had it since.

    It'll go away when I die.

    Big whoop

  • So I'm guessing I can't go back to my iTools.com account either? It was a long time ago, but I'm sure Apple moved me from iTools to .Mac

  • Boy, was that a lousy movie.

  • "Email for Life" (Score:4, Funny)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @10:05AM (#60461716) Homepage Journal

    Fooled again by Steve Jobs! He meant his life, not mine. Shame on me.com.

  • The biggest issue for me is that Apple are adamant that @me.com and @icloud.com are interchangeable, and they aren't.

    You can sign your AppleID in to an iPhone or MacOS with either suffix, but if you created the account during the @me.com period only using @me.com works correctly.

    I've spent countless days with Apple Support, including direct "engineering assistance" and while they are absolute in their statements that you can use either, you can't.

    My iCloud Music Library was fundamentally broken for weeks, n

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