Abandon MobileMe for iCloud

Apple has never been very successful with its web services, first launching iTools, then abandoning it for .Mac. This was killed off and replaced with MobileMe, which was itself ditched and replaced with iCloud. One day Apple might get it right.

All this has left me with a bit of a problem.

Many years ago I only had a Windows computer. However, I had an iPod and I ran iTunes on Windows and had an iTunes store account with Apple ID with my email address and password to log in. Music, podcasts, videos and other items could be downloaded and purchased on my Windows PC.

Then I got a Mac and naturally I signed up for MobileMe when it was launched. It gave me an additional email address, it was useful for backing up, web access to email, calendar and contacts when not on my Mac, iDisk online storage and so on.

When Apple ditched MobileMe it converted my MobileMe account to iCloud. At the same time it enabled iCloud for everyone with an Apple iTunes store account. So now I have two iCloud accounts. The one that used to be MobileMe and the one for my iTunes store account, but neither of them work perfectly.

My ex-MobileMe iCloud can't be used to buy music, download apps, videos and so on, even if they are free because there isn't an iTunes store account associated with it. My iTunes store iCloud has access to music, apps, videos, the Mac App store and more, but it won't sync contacts and calendars and mail doesn't work because there's no MobileMe email account. Even though I've got one.

The ideal solution would be to combine my Ex-MobileMe account with @me.com email address with my  iTunes store account, but this doesn't seem to be possible. Entering the MobileMe email address into the iTunes store iCloud account just comes up with an error saying that the email address is invalid because it is already in use. Yes! By Me! Why can't I use it!

The only solution that I can see is to abandon my MobileMe account, deleting it from my iPhone, deleting iCloud and adding iCloud again on my iPhone again using my iTunes store ID. Going into iCloud settings on the iPhone then shows the features that are available. Mail is not, but when it is turned on I am prompted to create a free @me.com email address. This I have now done. So I have a new @me.com email address.

In the process of deleting my old MobileMe account and changing iCloud to my iTunes store ID on my Mac I've discovered that I've wiped out all my contacts and calendars. Probably because they aren't in the new @me.com address book. Oh dear. Now I've got to figure out how to restore them.