12 ms·

iCloud+ custom email domains should be better

230 points by domlaut 5y ago

lokimedes 5y ago
Valid points, but considering the price of this service, it leaves me with little complaints.
PeterWhittaker 5y ago
Great resumé. With luck Apple will address these: I’ve been curious about moving my domains from Google and Apple seemed like a good choice for me, but these would be show-stoppers for me as well.
- domlaut 5y ago
  Thanks! Appreciate the feedback, glad I was able to provide some relevant insight. I'm hoping shining a light on these pain points turns some heads at Apple so we end up with a better service and one more good competitor in the hosted email space -- if you don't mind it being Apple, of course. :-)
netfortius 5y ago
If it's just for custom domain and email, then Infomaniak is yet another choice, on a price to features, unlimited storage (for email) and hosting country (privacy concerns with Apple and US, anyone?!?) ratio solution. I have recently moved my custom domain hosting from a more expensive service, to Infomaniak, and I got the first email address for free (the main from my Google workspace), to which I may add some more, if all works as expected, in the next month or so.
- rnk 5y ago
  I took a glance at their website. Does it do all the things the original article mentioned? Like setup catchall email, route email to specific addresses (like I have 3 people in my family, Jane, Akbar, Jeff, jeff@mydomain.com goes to him, but everyone@mydomain.com goes to all of us, yet parents@mydomain.com goes to just the 2 parents). I want that, plus it's part of the current hodge podge of email verification standards so it won't be blocked as spam when I send from there. That's the most valuable feature of goggle mail and domain hosting to me.
  - netfortius 5y ago
    Read the https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2 https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2 and contact their support. They are very detailed in responses, to any specific inquiries.
- achairapart 5y ago
  Looks like a very good option, thanks for the tip! They're swiss based and this is their website: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/service-mail/ https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/service-mail/
- AnonC 5y ago
  Seems like the email service is only available if you buy the domain from them or transfer the domain to them. I couldn’t find how one could use an existing domain that one owns without transferring to them.
  - netfortius 5y ago
    Incorrect. One FREE address is only available if moving the domain. Paid emails are available no matter where the domain is registered. Read the https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2 https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2
- yannikyeo 5y ago
  Gandi (https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email) is another registrar with free email for each domain with them. It gives you two 3GB mailbox.
miken123 5y ago
I would say another main issue is that while they ask you to setup DKIM records, they do not actually DKIM-sign your emails. Hence your mails may be more easily flagged as spam. Several people have reported this to Apple, but AFAIK it still hasn’t been fixed.
- domlaut 5y ago
  You're right -- this is something I missed mentioning. As of right now, it's still only the web-based iCloud Mail that makes use of DKIM. Using any other client/app will deliver your emails unsigned. Would you mind if I updated the article crediting you for the DKIM addendum?
  - slimeboty 5y ago
    Does the desktop mail app count as iCloud mail?
    - domlaut 5y ago
      Unfortunately not, DKIM doesn't work on either Apple's desktop or iOS/iPadOS Mail.app (aka. Apple Mail). OTOH, at least they set the correct Return-Path unlike some others that leak your Apple ID through the header instead.
  - miken123 5y ago
    I believe the webinterface signs with the icloud.com domain and not your own. Happy for you to update the article, no need for credits.
- bredren 5y ago
  This sounds bad, does it have practical implications? Have people switched to apple hosted custom domains for email and suffered deliverability problems?
  - domlaut 5y ago
    I personally haven't noticed deliverability issues. It'd still be nice to have the messages signed without having to use the web-based iCloud Mail.
dan_wood 5y ago
No mention of the 3 existing email address limit per user on this article makes me sad...
- jws 5y ago
  That's what stopped me from using iCloud+ for the family email domain. It was the easy winner except for that.
- domlaut 5y ago
  This was something I was hoping to get around with using a separate relay like ImprovMX or Cloudflare's Email Routing -- that'd allow you to have a bunch more assuming you didn't need to use them for outbound emails -- discovering issue #2 in the process. And issue #6, if you did want to use them for outbound emails :-)
  - nickmcc 5y ago
    I’ve switched from my Gmail domain to CloudFlare + iCloud. Initially, I set MX records and the txt record to iCloud for verification, and then added the CloudFlare MX records at a higher priority. So far, the setup seems to be working well.
h4waii 5y ago
iCloud+ seemed like a great value proposition for people migrating from Workspace, but there are quite a few hangups. Seems like Microsoft hits a good middle ground. Completely off topic, but why do people think having a sticky header indicating how far "through" an article is, is worth disrupting the content for?
- domlaut 5y ago
  Valid point -- sorry the header is getting in your way. Out of the available theme for Ghost I found this one taking away the least from the actual content - I'll look into getting rid of the header bar as traffic subdues not to break anything now :-) Microsoft does hit a great middle ground -- but there's still far too little players IMO. Would enjoy if we also had Apple as a contender -- especially if they'll remain as big on their service businesses as they claim.
- shimms 5y ago
  We just went down the rabbit hole of trying to migrate to Microsoft 365 Family with custom domain. You (officially) need to move your domain to GoDaddy, which was unfortunately a blocker for us as they don’t support our domains TLD. From what I read DKIM also isn’t offered on Family which is disappointing. Business plans get expensive quickly when you want Office apps as well.
  - mig39 5y ago
    I know they really try to sell you on GoDaddy, but it's possible to set it up with using another registrar.
    - shimms 5y ago
      I found some info on setting up DNS for other providers, but it isn’t officially supported and for something as important as email I don’t want them randomly breaking it one day, which they could since they expect all customers to be configured through their API integration with GoGaddy. No need to advise in advance of MX host changes etc when it’s supposed to be entirely managed by them. I understand their target demographic here might not be super technical, so the deep integration with godaddy makes sense, but would be nice for a supported advanced user pathway too.
woodson 5y ago
The “This email is already in use with another Apple ID.” issue after the Apple ID was deleted is particularly annoying. Why would they do that?
- josephg 5y ago
  I doubt its on purpose. My mum's work email address changed and we changed the email address associated with her apple ID. She had no end of tiny bugs pop up - especially in the first couple of weeks after the change. Apple's systems in general don't seem to cope well with email addresses changing or being deleted. I think lots of software engineers use email addresses as if they're an immutable primary key. This just isn't the case.
  - woodson 5y ago
    The claimed one-year period from deletion to when it becomes available for use as custom domain actually makes me think that it is on purpose. I just don’t understand what that purpose would be. I would think it was a bug if it just wouldn’t let you use an email currently or formerly used as another Apple ID, no matter how long ago.
    - daniel_iversen 5y ago
      Could it be that they're trying to make sure that any old online accounts on the old email address isn't able to be hijacked? In most tech workplaces when you leave, your email address is being put in a holding place and not reused - i.e. I never got daniel@ as an email address in any of my companies because there was always a Daniel before me, and once they leave they don't want me to reuse the address because I could reset the password for any of their accounts that had used that email address.. Less likely scenario in families but you could still imagine some family conflicts or falling outs and then someone goes and does bad stuff with accounts? Just a thought.
      - domlaut 5y ago
        It's a reasonable policy for Apple-owned Apple IDs on their public domains (@icloud.com, @mac.com, @me.com), but I don't see how it makes sense for privately owned domains you're already in control of the DNS for. You could use any other mail provider or routing service and get access to any emails that way -- then do a password for any other service where the address used was on the domain you were in control of.
hughrr 5y ago
Yeah valid complaints but none of them I’ve noticed myself. It works really well for me. I suspect apple will be producing another subscription model or extension to it to support these features once they’ve proven it in production for a bit.
theginger 5y ago
My biggest problem with it is I cannot sign up to iCloud+ because I don't have an apple device or a windows pc I could install the iCloud app onto. I suspect if I was to borrow one trying to use the mail on an android device would be fairly miserable making it not worth it but would be nice to have the option to try without needing to jump through hoops.
- AnonC 5y ago
  Apple designs services to cater to its own hardware, first and foremost. The intent is to get more people to buy Apple hardware. Any apps or services available on other platforms are usually poor efforts from the company (like iCloud or iTunes on Windows or Apple Music on Android). With Apple focusing more on growing its services business to compensate for any saturation in the hardware market space, there’s some chance that the situation might improve for other platforms (but those would be Windows and Android, not Linux). But Apple already has about a 70% profit margin on its services. So it’s unlikely that other platforms will be prioritized in the next few years (it’s not in Apple’s DNA).
abestic9 5y ago
I'm optimistic that Apple is working on most of these issues (especially catch-all) right now and this is just representative of their new offering. Like many things I've seen from Apple it will take a release cycle or two (of 1-2 years per cycle) to bring in this arguably basic functionality - as is tradition we'll groan about other issues being held back in favour of fancy new features. I have no doubt they intend to fully compete with the email services from Google and Microsoft. Following on from last year we should see VPs taking us through the updates to iCloud+ alongside device launches as it expands into a fundamental service offering.
- silvestrov 5y ago
  I would fear that Apple forgets about the feature after a few years and then just drops it. This is not central to their business and Apple trims such things very agressively. I would always buy a domain-email from somebody who has this as their main business, and I would never couple my email to Apple which could lock me out of my account if they think I "behave suspiciously".
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    On the contrary, services are where Apple has been spending a lot of focus, for better or for worse.
  - voisin 5y ago
    > I would fear that Apple forgets about the feature after a few years and then just drops it. This is a Google thing to do. Apple seems pretty great at picking and choosing commitments before they launch rather than what you describe here.
    - dvdkon 5y ago
      Not with online services, they've at least rebranded if not recoded them a few times. mac.com, MobileMe/me.com, icloud.com. It's true that the market is now much more stable, though.
rez9x 5y ago
I use ProtonMail because of their good support for custom domains. Their higher focus on privacy and security is nice, but it has little to do with why I chose them vs competitors. The only downside is you have to use the ProtonMail app or website on mobile, because of the way they do mailbox encryption.
- rekoil 5y ago
  What put me off from ProtonMail was their ridiculous "pay us money for extra domains" charge which makes it obvious to me they are not as honest as I initially thought they were. Allowing me to connect other domains to my one mailbox shouldn't cost them anything beyond the initial costs of developing the code to support multiple domains which they've obviously already done.
- james-redwood 5y ago
  Even if you pay for the premium service? I thought that was one of the features: where one could use it on a third party mail client.
  - arubania2 5y ago
    That's true for the desktop - they provide an app called the Bridge that logs into your inbox, decrypts the mail and exposes an email service on localhost that you can point your mail client to.
njhaveri 5y ago
After the end of legacy G Suite was announced, I tried using iCloud+ to forward my personal domain to Gmail. However, because iCloud does not seem to support ARC for forwarding, Gmail was sending too much to Spam. I tried many other mainstream forwarding options and settled on Pobox as the best overall option, and moved my personal domain over. It's working pretty well, flowing to my regular Gmail account and having aliases set up in Gmail.
- littlecranky67 5y ago
  When I got burned by the legacy G Suite announce, I had similar bad experience with Microsoft 365 for Families. They - for some reason - only support custom domains that were registered/moved to GoDaddy (there is unsupported 3rd party guides on how to bypass checks but anyone with the requirement of stable email reachability will obviously not rely on that). Too bad you find that out after you setup your account, billing, mailbox etc.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    Also, from the faq: "Outlook.com currently does not support DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC)." This is an odd oversight considering this recommendation from their commercial product: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/use-dkim-to-validate-outbound-email https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/offi... The whole m365 for families product is weirdly crippled, I assume to keep people from running their small business using the cheaper subscription?
shaunpud 5y ago
I know this is an old thread, and I don't use catch-all addresses (well I did back in the wild-west of the web, but we're talking over 20 years ago), however it's funny to see how many people are like "Gmail spam filter caught it" or "several domains with Google workspace and had no problems". I've used other email systems; which for example, use SpamAssassin; and the amount of shit that comes through. So yes, catch-all is all the rage, if you're using Google, however if you're not, expect a bunch of spam, right? I hear more and more people wanting to getting off the "G" ecosystem, so I guess it'll be different responses to this in the near future.
kevindong 5y ago
I'm surprised Apple supports custom email domains to any extent. Apple is a consumer electronics company. Hosted email on custom domains is very distinctly not a typical consumer behavior.
- dymk 5y ago
  Apple has been moving towards services as a major part of their business for the better part of a decade now
  - kevindong 5y ago
    They have been moving to services, but all of their other services are distinctly mass consumer oriented; e.g. TV+, Music streaming, Fitness+ videos, Arcade, News+, iCloud photo backup, Card https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ https://www.apple.com/services/ https://www.apple.com/services/
- domlaut 5y ago
  It fits in great with the privacy narrative Apple has been pushing for and marketing for a while now. With their announcement of focusing on services, I think it makes perfect sense. Definitely not an easy problem for them to tackle, especially with what must be decades of legacy systems and various relays (Mac.com, Me.com, iCloud.com, ...).
- bredren 5y ago
  I suspect it is because Google suite threatens Apple’s office web offering. Offering custom domains for personal can link up to office documents and this can make its way into business use. For small businesses already standardizing on Mac hardware, it’s natural they should want to get the privacy and in-ecosystem utility of an apple version of Gsuite.
- weikju 5y ago
  For as long as iCloud existed, people have been clamoring for custom domains. I think it might have been possible back in the iTools or MobileMe days? Maybe I'm mis-remembering. Me, I've experimented with migrating some of my domains from self-hosted to iCloud+, simply for the ease of management and reducing the headache from SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc. It turns out I have a spurious DNS record that was causing all my headaches, which I had forgotten to remove from older experiments, and I didn't need to migrate to solve this. In either case, it's a nice convenience feature. Despite the trend, and the HN-think, Apple DOES do things for power-users sometimes.
imwillofficial 5y ago
Hey Email has been super cool about all this for small family use.
- strontium_90 5y ago
  Hey Email looks to have some great features, but at $12/user/month it's more expensive than Exchange Online or Google Workspace, which means it's more a choice about whether a user values Hey's nifty features (and they do look nifty) than an easy option for email domain hosting vs the OP's issues with iCloud+. For my family's email needs, $12/user/month is a bit of a non-starter given the competition.
bredren 5y ago
This is helpful. I had planned to move from gsuite for mail to start, but these op’s points and others mentioned here suggest it’s not ready yet.
- scim-knox-twox 5y ago
  Try Fastmail
rreichel03 5y ago
I jumped onto iCloud emails as soon as it became available this past fall and immediately ran into #6. I set up test email accounts in my iCloud account including my wife's just to see if it would work - Evidently that was a mistake because when I removed then attempted to reregister her email under her iCloud account (same "Family") it blocked her with the same opaque error message mentioned. I reached out to Apple support and after going back and forth for 1-2 months, they finally said it was "by design." Because my iCloud account first set up her email address (then subsequently removed it) it was permanently tied to my iCloud account even though we were in the same family. The support rep said there was nothing more that could be done other than moving to another email provider. tl;dr; Emails can only ever be registered with one iCloud account ever, even in the same Apple family
shaunpud 5y ago
I don't know why anyone would use a catch-all these days, unless you want to get inundated with spam.
- thelittleone 5y ago
  I've used a catch all on several domains with Google workspace and had no problems (that I know of) with spam.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  I use a catch-all for my email and give business unique emails. I don't have a spam issue, at least not for any emails except for the "main" email.
- 7steps2much 5y ago
  I use a catch all on (several) domains and have received a stunning 5 spam-mails within the last 2 years.
- Simplicitas 5y ago
  Couldn't agree more.
  - scim-knox-twox 5y ago
    Couldn't disagree more.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  ROI for spamming catch-alls is pretty low these days with how many actual user DB leaks there are floating around for free.
- rekoil 5y ago
  I've used a catch-all email for about 14 years now, I have no idea what you're talking about as this has literally never been an issue.
  - 5y ago
cube00 5y ago
Catch-all addresses are a must have for me now. I allocate unique addresses to every website as these are more robust then using the + operator because they can't be stripped off. I've already busted one company (I presume selling) my email address to a cloud provider for them to send me marketing material. I emailed their privacy officer and didn't even get a reply, but that's OK, if it continues, one sieve rule and I can delete any mail that arrives on that address. I just hope the spammers don't get so advanced they start forging other web sites addresses, maybe I'll have to move to a hashed and salted version that they can't forge.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  I've detected an Xfinity data breach using custom aliases, but so far Xfinity refused to acknowledge anything.
- voisin 5y ago
  Why not use iCloud’s private email feature to generate a new email that forwards to your regular email for these purposes?
  - 7steps2much 5y ago
    Just my personal opinion, but the reason I got a domain to start with was to not be dependent on a specific provider. Also, it's is far nicer to be able to simply sign up to a website with company@example.com than go generate a random email. Especially if you are on another device.
    - M5x7wI3CmbEem10 5y ago
      doesn't this lock you in with the domain provider? google domains or whatever you use
      - neoromantique 5y ago
        You can migrate your domain to a different registrar
saagarjha 5y ago
Bad error messages is kind of an institutional problem at Apple. Somehow there’s a push to “simplify” the error process and it invariably means that some part of e pipeline has good error info that is, if you’re lucky, dropped in a log somewhere and just completely swallowed if you’re not. In the UI you’ll just get a generic “something went wrong” or a “translated” error that isn’t bijective at all, or sometimes not even an indication that something went wrong (particularly around ambient operations like syncing). It’s really quite frustrating how often I need to go through a truly awful amount of spelunking just to figure out what a “user friendly” message means, which is pretty much the opposite of user friendliness.
- can16358p 5y ago
  I get user friendliness for non tech-savvy users, but they should definitely have something like "details" that you can expand for power users, especially somewhere like custom domain management/DNS record checker where there are probably power users using it.
umlaut1 5y ago
Like many, I got bit by the end of legacy free Google Workspace so I've been figuring out my options. One related issue is how to get email off of Google Workspace. After checking out various options, I've settled on using imapsync (https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync). Unfortunately, the official Docker image was throwing errors for me while trying to move an almost 100k email account. Ended up building a modified version which I have now been able to successfully use to migrate. Image: https://hub.docker.com/r/jauderho/imapsync https://hub.docker.com/r/jauderho/imapsync Dockerfile: https://github.com/jauderho/dockerfiles/blob/main/imapsync/Dockerfile https://github.com/jauderho/dockerfiles/blob/main/imapsync/D... HTH. Protip for those moving to iCloud+ custom email domains, you HAVE to temporarily set the SPF record to exactly match what Apple wants to see during the initial setup. Else it will complain that setup cannot be completed. You can revert it to whatever you had it set to previously (plus include:icloud.com) once the setup is complete.
- domlaut 5y ago
  Having to exactly match records -- SPF included -- is one of the grievances outlined in the article. What I should probably have also mentioned is I also reported these using Apple's iCloud feedback form [1], and it might be helpful if others did as well. Unlike Radar / Developer Feedback, Product Feedback doesn't reply back with an ID you can use to track the feedback status :-( [1] https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html
- Gareth321 5y ago
  FYI for anyone seeking to download all their emails (or any other data stored by Google) they now have a handy tool developed at the behest of the EU: Google Takeout: https://takeout.google.com/ https://takeout.google.com/
  - fauigerzigerk 5y ago
    Google Takeout predates GDPR by several years. I'm not sure if there was any other legislation in place in 2011 that required Google to provide something like this. My recollection is that it was not directly related to any actual legislation at the time.
rootusrootus 5y ago
I was irrationally hoping Apple would offer a service that allowed for custom domains with accounts outside the family group. E.g. so I could let my extended family enjoy the benefits of our custom domain, but also have them manage their own billing direct with Apple. I'm just going to switch over to Fastmail (currently on an end-of-life'd gsuite setup).
StepBroBD 5y ago
this actually says everything i need
vucetica 5y ago
Another problem that I have is iCloud+ storage limit of 4TB. My family will very soon get very close to this limit with all our photos, videos and other stuff. Is anyone aware of any plans for an increase in near future?
daviddavis 5y ago
With the way that Apple prevents you from reusing Apple IDs, does it mean that if my Apple ID is blah@mydomainname.com and I migrate mydomainname.com (currently using G Suite free) over to iCloud that I can't set up blah@mydomainname.com?
- domlaut 5y ago
  You can. However, if you switch your Apple ID to a different address before you set up both the domain and the blah@mydomainname.com address to route to your account, you won't be able to set up blah@mydomainname.com for any account under your iCloud subscription for a year.
  - daviddavis 5y ago
    I see. Thanks for the response! Great article too.
dfee 5y ago
Ooh. I have a question about migrating off Google Apps (which I pay $12/mo for across two domains - one mine, and one my wife’s). We’ve received a fair amount of links shared with us on Google Drive. Is there anyway to migrate off Google Apps AND retain access to those links? Or, am I basically stuck paying for this software for the rest of my life?
mark_l_watson 5y ago
I switched my domain to iCloud+ the first day it was offered. It took over an hour to get working, but I am happy enough with the service. I did switch to using Apple’s e-mail client apps for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Like using all e-mail services, I make periodic local backups in case I ever want to switch my domain to another service.
nvr219 5y ago
I will once again recommend Fastmail for any family that uses a custom domain. You legacy G-suiters have a couple months left!
- merlinscholz 5y ago
  Or ProtonMail, which is outside of the Five Eyes!
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    If you're doing anything substantiative enough to warrant investigation by a big government, that won't help much https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58476983 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58476983
    - merlinscholz 5y ago
      What are they supposed to do when their own government has a warrant? Ignore it and let the government shut down the whole site? This way they followed it without breaking anyones encryption, no back door, … this is a positive aspect in my view.
- _nhynes 5y ago
  I switched to Migadu yesterday after seeing some positive reviews here, and I’ve no complaints so far.
  - kelvinquee 5y ago
    +1 Been with Migadu since 2017 with no complaints. Lost some mails on an account due to a migration of sorts on their end though that was eventually restored after a ticket. Michael and his crew are fantastic in progressively introducing new features that you may never find elsewhere (https://www.migadu.com/guides/index.html#features https://www.migadu.com/guides/index.html#features). Your end users may hate the sparse webmail features though that's nothing that Thunderbird or Outlook may not resolve. HTH!
- 5y ago
crossroadsguy 5y ago
I reckon some people have an inherent need to keep things inside Apple’s walked garden. I often see it becoming nothing short of an obsession. For the rest I’d, as someone who gave it a try - almost their entire services suite including TV etc a thorough try, highly recommend to stay out. Stay out even if they improve it (which I doubt) from its current state i.e. pathetic. - Apple is a weird company but they are weird because they can afford to be weird in the way they are because they know their fan base (their majority/core users) - Their software and services have revisions/major updates/upgrades tied with OS versions. - Even across OS versions they so deliberately don’t add the most essential features and literally “hold back” as if they go completely deaf on user needs - I believe it stems of a inferior software engineering prowess and a lack of confidence - that “let’s keep it for the next OS release” so that we announce on stage “For the first time in any iOS - you can control two SIMs separately - TrueSIM™ - or named something ridiculously absurd. - They have repeatedly shown they’re not callous about user needs or feedback but they’re openly hostile to it. - The “just works” smoke is very much cleared by now and they’re either just too incompetent or stupidly adamant still trying to ride the fan wave of “they know what we want” and fans giddily shoving everything down their own throats claiming as the best whatever Apple churned out. I skew towards the former though. - Also they do not have real competition with other softwares, more so on iOS and iPadOS, unlike Android (which I develop for but am not a user of) you literally don’t have options of softwares for many basic usage. - Now one can argue they like it that way - I don’t. They have anyway such a locked down App Store - not letting users choose browser, SMS apps etc is just a poor excuse that they can somehow get away with. I would just treat them as a device seller and keep my software and services from other competent places. Besides I like my eggs in various baskets. The last thing I want is my email from a provider which 100% coupled with devices from one manufacturer that is locked down like never before in history and their locking users out puts Google’s famous locking out to shame.
- stillblue 5y ago
  As someone who uses a lot of Apple devices, I agree with you 100%
- blitzar 5y ago
  > I would just treat them as a device seller If you believe the things you wrote - weird, institutionally dishonest, hostile to its customers and grossly incompetent why would you buy anything ever from them?
AnonC 5y ago
OP, not that this may yield any quick results, but this post should be emailed to Eddy Cue (cue@), the SVP of services, and Tim Cook (tcook@) at Apple. Some of the emails sent to them do get responses.
privacynerd99 5y ago
steelbrain 5y ago
I moved my emails to iCloud plus email domains less than a month ago. The import of existing emails was excruciatingly slow. I mean, 1 email per second on average, then failing with some random error halfway down the line (120k emails), even on retries, causing your migration agent to give up. I spent the better half of a week trying to get it to work, ended up moving to Google Workspace instead.

230 points by domlaut 5y ago

Valid points, but considering the price of this service, it leaves me with little complaints.

Great resumé. With luck Apple will address these: I’ve been curious about moving my domains from Google and Apple seemed like a good choice for me, but these would be show-stoppers for me as well.

domlaut 5y ago
Thanks! Appreciate the feedback, glad I was able to provide some relevant insight. I'm hoping shining a light on these pain points turns some heads at Apple so we end up with a better service and one more good competitor in the hosted email space -- if you don't mind it being Apple, of course. :-)

netfortius 5y ago

If it's just for custom domain and email, then Infomaniak is yet another choice, on a price to features, unlimited storage (for email) and hosting country (privacy concerns with Apple and US, anyone?!?) ratio solution. I have recently moved my custom domain hosting from a more expensive service, to Infomaniak, and I got the first email address for free (the main from my Google workspace), to which I may add some more, if all works as expected, in the next month or so.

rnk 5y ago
I took a glance at their website. Does it do all the things the original article mentioned? Like setup catchall email, route email to specific addresses (like I have 3 people in my family, Jane, Akbar, Jeff, jeff@mydomain.com goes to him, but everyone@mydomain.com goes to all of us, yet parents@mydomain.com goes to just the 2 parents). I want that, plus it's part of the current hodge podge of email verification standards so it won't be blocked as spam when I send from there. That's the most valuable feature of goggle mail and domain hosting to me.
- netfortius 5y ago
  Read the https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2 https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2 and contact their support. They are very detailed in responses, to any specific inquiries.
achairapart 5y ago
Looks like a very good option, thanks for the tip! They're swiss based and this is their website: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/service-mail/ https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/service-mail/
AnonC 5y ago
Seems like the email service is only available if you buy the domain from them or transfer the domain to them. I couldn’t find how one could use an existing domain that one owns without transferring to them.
- netfortius 5y ago
  Incorrect. One FREE address is only available if moving the domain. Paid emails are available no matter where the domain is registered. Read the https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2 https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/admin2
yannikyeo 5y ago
Gandi (https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email) is another registrar with free email for each domain with them. It gives you two 3GB mailbox.

miken123 5y ago

I would say another main issue is that while they ask you to setup DKIM records, they do not actually DKIM-sign your emails. Hence your mails may be more easily flagged as spam. Several people have reported this to Apple, but AFAIK it still hasn’t been fixed.

domlaut 5y ago
You're right -- this is something I missed mentioning. As of right now, it's still only the web-based iCloud Mail that makes use of DKIM. Using any other client/app will deliver your emails unsigned. Would you mind if I updated the article crediting you for the DKIM addendum?
- slimeboty 5y ago
  Does the desktop mail app count as iCloud mail?
  - domlaut 5y ago
    Unfortunately not, DKIM doesn't work on either Apple's desktop or iOS/iPadOS Mail.app (aka. Apple Mail). OTOH, at least they set the correct Return-Path unlike some others that leak your Apple ID through the header instead.
- miken123 5y ago
  I believe the webinterface signs with the icloud.com domain and not your own. Happy for you to update the article, no need for credits.
bredren 5y ago
This sounds bad, does it have practical implications? Have people switched to apple hosted custom domains for email and suffered deliverability problems?
- domlaut 5y ago
  I personally haven't noticed deliverability issues. It'd still be nice to have the messages signed without having to use the web-based iCloud Mail.

dan_wood 5y ago

No mention of the 3 existing email address limit per user on this article makes me sad...

jws 5y ago
That's what stopped me from using iCloud+ for the family email domain. It was the easy winner except for that.
domlaut 5y ago
This was something I was hoping to get around with using a separate relay like ImprovMX or Cloudflare's Email Routing -- that'd allow you to have a bunch more assuming you didn't need to use them for outbound emails -- discovering issue #2 in the process. And issue #6, if you did want to use them for outbound emails :-)
- nickmcc 5y ago
  I’ve switched from my Gmail domain to CloudFlare + iCloud. Initially, I set MX records and the txt record to iCloud for verification, and then added the CloudFlare MX records at a higher priority. So far, the setup seems to be working well.

h4waii 5y ago

iCloud+ seemed like a great value proposition for people migrating from Workspace, but there are quite a few hangups. Seems like Microsoft hits a good middle ground. Completely off topic, but why do people think having a sticky header indicating how far "through" an article is, is worth disrupting the content for?

domlaut 5y ago
Valid point -- sorry the header is getting in your way. Out of the available theme for Ghost I found this one taking away the least from the actual content - I'll look into getting rid of the header bar as traffic subdues not to break anything now :-) Microsoft does hit a great middle ground -- but there's still far too little players IMO. Would enjoy if we also had Apple as a contender -- especially if they'll remain as big on their service businesses as they claim.
shimms 5y ago
We just went down the rabbit hole of trying to migrate to Microsoft 365 Family with custom domain. You (officially) need to move your domain to GoDaddy, which was unfortunately a blocker for us as they don’t support our domains TLD. From what I read DKIM also isn’t offered on Family which is disappointing. Business plans get expensive quickly when you want Office apps as well.
- mig39 5y ago
  I know they really try to sell you on GoDaddy, but it's possible to set it up with using another registrar.
  - shimms 5y ago
    I found some info on setting up DNS for other providers, but it isn’t officially supported and for something as important as email I don’t want them randomly breaking it one day, which they could since they expect all customers to be configured through their API integration with GoGaddy. No need to advise in advance of MX host changes etc when it’s supposed to be entirely managed by them. I understand their target demographic here might not be super technical, so the deep integration with godaddy makes sense, but would be nice for a supported advanced user pathway too.

woodson 5y ago

The “This email is already in use with another Apple ID.” issue after the Apple ID was deleted is particularly annoying. Why would they do that?

josephg 5y ago
I doubt its on purpose. My mum's work email address changed and we changed the email address associated with her apple ID. She had no end of tiny bugs pop up - especially in the first couple of weeks after the change. Apple's systems in general don't seem to cope well with email addresses changing or being deleted. I think lots of software engineers use email addresses as if they're an immutable primary key. This just isn't the case.
- woodson 5y ago
  The claimed one-year period from deletion to when it becomes available for use as custom domain actually makes me think that it is on purpose. I just don’t understand what that purpose would be. I would think it was a bug if it just wouldn’t let you use an email currently or formerly used as another Apple ID, no matter how long ago.
  - daniel_iversen 5y ago
    Could it be that they're trying to make sure that any old online accounts on the old email address isn't able to be hijacked? In most tech workplaces when you leave, your email address is being put in a holding place and not reused - i.e. I never got daniel@ as an email address in any of my companies because there was always a Daniel before me, and once they leave they don't want me to reuse the address because I could reset the password for any of their accounts that had used that email address.. Less likely scenario in families but you could still imagine some family conflicts or falling outs and then someone goes and does bad stuff with accounts? Just a thought.
    - domlaut 5y ago
      It's a reasonable policy for Apple-owned Apple IDs on their public domains (@icloud.com, @mac.com, @me.com), but I don't see how it makes sense for privately owned domains you're already in control of the DNS for. You could use any other mail provider or routing service and get access to any emails that way -- then do a password for any other service where the address used was on the domain you were in control of.

hughrr 5y ago

Yeah valid complaints but none of them I’ve noticed myself. It works really well for me. I suspect apple will be producing another subscription model or extension to it to support these features once they’ve proven it in production for a bit.

theginger 5y ago

My biggest problem with it is I cannot sign up to iCloud+ because I don't have an apple device or a windows pc I could install the iCloud app onto. I suspect if I was to borrow one trying to use the mail on an android device would be fairly miserable making it not worth it but would be nice to have the option to try without needing to jump through hoops.

AnonC 5y ago
Apple designs services to cater to its own hardware, first and foremost. The intent is to get more people to buy Apple hardware. Any apps or services available on other platforms are usually poor efforts from the company (like iCloud or iTunes on Windows or Apple Music on Android). With Apple focusing more on growing its services business to compensate for any saturation in the hardware market space, there’s some chance that the situation might improve for other platforms (but those would be Windows and Android, not Linux). But Apple already has about a 70% profit margin on its services. So it’s unlikely that other platforms will be prioritized in the next few years (it’s not in Apple’s DNA).

abestic9 5y ago

I'm optimistic that Apple is working on most of these issues (especially catch-all) right now and this is just representative of their new offering. Like many things I've seen from Apple it will take a release cycle or two (of 1-2 years per cycle) to bring in this arguably basic functionality - as is tradition we'll groan about other issues being held back in favour of fancy new features. I have no doubt they intend to fully compete with the email services from Google and Microsoft. Following on from last year we should see VPs taking us through the updates to iCloud+ alongside device launches as it expands into a fundamental service offering.

silvestrov 5y ago
I would fear that Apple forgets about the feature after a few years and then just drops it. This is not central to their business and Apple trims such things very agressively. I would always buy a domain-email from somebody who has this as their main business, and I would never couple my email to Apple which could lock me out of my account if they think I "behave suspiciously".
- saagarjha 5y ago
  On the contrary, services are where Apple has been spending a lot of focus, for better or for worse.
- voisin 5y ago
  > I would fear that Apple forgets about the feature after a few years and then just drops it. This is a Google thing to do. Apple seems pretty great at picking and choosing commitments before they launch rather than what you describe here.
  - dvdkon 5y ago
    Not with online services, they've at least rebranded if not recoded them a few times. mac.com, MobileMe/me.com, icloud.com. It's true that the market is now much more stable, though.

rez9x 5y ago

I use ProtonMail because of their good support for custom domains. Their higher focus on privacy and security is nice, but it has little to do with why I chose them vs competitors. The only downside is you have to use the ProtonMail app or website on mobile, because of the way they do mailbox encryption.

rekoil 5y ago
What put me off from ProtonMail was their ridiculous "pay us money for extra domains" charge which makes it obvious to me they are not as honest as I initially thought they were. Allowing me to connect other domains to my one mailbox shouldn't cost them anything beyond the initial costs of developing the code to support multiple domains which they've obviously already done.
james-redwood 5y ago
Even if you pay for the premium service? I thought that was one of the features: where one could use it on a third party mail client.
- arubania2 5y ago
  That's true for the desktop - they provide an app called the Bridge that logs into your inbox, decrypts the mail and exposes an email service on localhost that you can point your mail client to.

njhaveri 5y ago

After the end of legacy G Suite was announced, I tried using iCloud+ to forward my personal domain to Gmail. However, because iCloud does not seem to support ARC for forwarding, Gmail was sending too much to Spam. I tried many other mainstream forwarding options and settled on Pobox as the best overall option, and moved my personal domain over. It's working pretty well, flowing to my regular Gmail account and having aliases set up in Gmail.

littlecranky67 5y ago
When I got burned by the legacy G Suite announce, I had similar bad experience with Microsoft 365 for Families. They - for some reason - only support custom domains that were registered/moved to GoDaddy (there is unsupported 3rd party guides on how to bypass checks but anyone with the requirement of stable email reachability will obviously not rely on that). Too bad you find that out after you setup your account, billing, mailbox etc.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  Also, from the faq: "Outlook.com currently does not support DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC)." This is an odd oversight considering this recommendation from their commercial product: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/use-dkim-to-validate-outbound-email https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/offi... The whole m365 for families product is weirdly crippled, I assume to keep people from running their small business using the cheaper subscription?

shaunpud 5y ago

I know this is an old thread, and I don't use catch-all addresses (well I did back in the wild-west of the web, but we're talking over 20 years ago), however it's funny to see how many people are like "Gmail spam filter caught it" or "several domains with Google workspace and had no problems". I've used other email systems; which for example, use SpamAssassin; and the amount of shit that comes through. So yes, catch-all is all the rage, if you're using Google, however if you're not, expect a bunch of spam, right? I hear more and more people wanting to getting off the "G" ecosystem, so I guess it'll be different responses to this in the near future.

kevindong 5y ago

I'm surprised Apple supports custom email domains to any extent. Apple is a consumer electronics company. Hosted email on custom domains is very distinctly not a typical consumer behavior.

dymk 5y ago
Apple has been moving towards services as a major part of their business for the better part of a decade now
- kevindong 5y ago
  They have been moving to services, but all of their other services are distinctly mass consumer oriented; e.g. TV+, Music streaming, Fitness+ videos, Arcade, News+, iCloud photo backup, Card https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ https://www.apple.com/services/ https://www.apple.com/services/
domlaut 5y ago
It fits in great with the privacy narrative Apple has been pushing for and marketing for a while now. With their announcement of focusing on services, I think it makes perfect sense. Definitely not an easy problem for them to tackle, especially with what must be decades of legacy systems and various relays (Mac.com, Me.com, iCloud.com, ...).
bredren 5y ago
I suspect it is because Google suite threatens Apple’s office web offering. Offering custom domains for personal can link up to office documents and this can make its way into business use. For small businesses already standardizing on Mac hardware, it’s natural they should want to get the privacy and in-ecosystem utility of an apple version of Gsuite.
weikju 5y ago
For as long as iCloud existed, people have been clamoring for custom domains. I think it might have been possible back in the iTools or MobileMe days? Maybe I'm mis-remembering. Me, I've experimented with migrating some of my domains from self-hosted to iCloud+, simply for the ease of management and reducing the headache from SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc. It turns out I have a spurious DNS record that was causing all my headaches, which I had forgotten to remove from older experiments, and I didn't need to migrate to solve this. In either case, it's a nice convenience feature. Despite the trend, and the HN-think, Apple DOES do things for power-users sometimes.

imwillofficial 5y ago

Hey Email has been super cool about all this for small family use.

strontium_90 5y ago
Hey Email looks to have some great features, but at $12/user/month it's more expensive than Exchange Online or Google Workspace, which means it's more a choice about whether a user values Hey's nifty features (and they do look nifty) than an easy option for email domain hosting vs the OP's issues with iCloud+. For my family's email needs, $12/user/month is a bit of a non-starter given the competition.

bredren 5y ago

This is helpful. I had planned to move from gsuite for mail to start, but these op’s points and others mentioned here suggest it’s not ready yet.

scim-knox-twox 5y ago
Try Fastmail

rreichel03 5y ago

I jumped onto iCloud emails as soon as it became available this past fall and immediately ran into #6. I set up test email accounts in my iCloud account including my wife's just to see if it would work - Evidently that was a mistake because when I removed then attempted to reregister her email under her iCloud account (same "Family") it blocked her with the same opaque error message mentioned. I reached out to Apple support and after going back and forth for 1-2 months, they finally said it was "by design." Because my iCloud account first set up her email address (then subsequently removed it) it was permanently tied to my iCloud account even though we were in the same family. The support rep said there was nothing more that could be done other than moving to another email provider. tl;dr; Emails can only ever be registered with one iCloud account ever, even in the same Apple family

shaunpud 5y ago

I don't know why anyone would use a catch-all these days, unless you want to get inundated with spam.

thelittleone 5y ago
I've used a catch all on several domains with Google workspace and had no problems (that I know of) with spam.
Bilal_io 5y ago
I use a catch-all for my email and give business unique emails. I don't have a spam issue, at least not for any emails except for the "main" email.
7steps2much 5y ago
I use a catch all on (several) domains and have received a stunning 5 spam-mails within the last 2 years.
Simplicitas 5y ago
Couldn't agree more.
- scim-knox-twox 5y ago
  Couldn't disagree more.
seanp2k2 5y ago
ROI for spamming catch-alls is pretty low these days with how many actual user DB leaks there are floating around for free.
rekoil 5y ago
I've used a catch-all email for about 14 years now, I have no idea what you're talking about as this has literally never been an issue.
- 5y ago

cube00 5y ago

Catch-all addresses are a must have for me now. I allocate unique addresses to every website as these are more robust then using the + operator because they can't be stripped off. I've already busted one company (I presume selling) my email address to a cloud provider for them to send me marketing material. I emailed their privacy officer and didn't even get a reply, but that's OK, if it continues, one sieve rule and I can delete any mail that arrives on that address. I just hope the spammers don't get so advanced they start forging other web sites addresses, maybe I'll have to move to a hashed and salted version that they can't forge.

encryptluks2 5y ago
I've detected an Xfinity data breach using custom aliases, but so far Xfinity refused to acknowledge anything.
voisin 5y ago
Why not use iCloud’s private email feature to generate a new email that forwards to your regular email for these purposes?
- 7steps2much 5y ago
  Just my personal opinion, but the reason I got a domain to start with was to not be dependent on a specific provider. Also, it's is far nicer to be able to simply sign up to a website with company@example.com than go generate a random email. Especially if you are on another device.
  - M5x7wI3CmbEem10 5y ago
    doesn't this lock you in with the domain provider? google domains or whatever you use
    - neoromantique 5y ago
      You can migrate your domain to a different registrar

saagarjha 5y ago

Bad error messages is kind of an institutional problem at Apple. Somehow there’s a push to “simplify” the error process and it invariably means that some part of e pipeline has good error info that is, if you’re lucky, dropped in a log somewhere and just completely swallowed if you’re not. In the UI you’ll just get a generic “something went wrong” or a “translated” error that isn’t bijective at all, or sometimes not even an indication that something went wrong (particularly around ambient operations like syncing). It’s really quite frustrating how often I need to go through a truly awful amount of spelunking just to figure out what a “user friendly” message means, which is pretty much the opposite of user friendliness.

can16358p 5y ago
I get user friendliness for non tech-savvy users, but they should definitely have something like "details" that you can expand for power users, especially somewhere like custom domain management/DNS record checker where there are probably power users using it.

umlaut1 5y ago

Like many, I got bit by the end of legacy free Google Workspace so I've been figuring out my options. One related issue is how to get email off of Google Workspace. After checking out various options, I've settled on using imapsync (https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync). Unfortunately, the official Docker image was throwing errors for me while trying to move an almost 100k email account. Ended up building a modified version which I have now been able to successfully use to migrate. Image: https://hub.docker.com/r/jauderho/imapsync https://hub.docker.com/r/jauderho/imapsync Dockerfile: https://github.com/jauderho/dockerfiles/blob/main/imapsync/Dockerfile https://github.com/jauderho/dockerfiles/blob/main/imapsync/D... HTH. Protip for those moving to iCloud+ custom email domains, you HAVE to temporarily set the SPF record to exactly match what Apple wants to see during the initial setup. Else it will complain that setup cannot be completed. You can revert it to whatever you had it set to previously (plus include:icloud.com) once the setup is complete.

domlaut 5y ago
Having to exactly match records -- SPF included -- is one of the grievances outlined in the article. What I should probably have also mentioned is I also reported these using Apple's iCloud feedback form [1], and it might be helpful if others did as well. Unlike Radar / Developer Feedback, Product Feedback doesn't reply back with an ID you can use to track the feedback status :-( [1] https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html
Gareth321 5y ago
FYI for anyone seeking to download all their emails (or any other data stored by Google) they now have a handy tool developed at the behest of the EU: Google Takeout: https://takeout.google.com/ https://takeout.google.com/
- fauigerzigerk 5y ago
  Google Takeout predates GDPR by several years. I'm not sure if there was any other legislation in place in 2011 that required Google to provide something like this. My recollection is that it was not directly related to any actual legislation at the time.

rootusrootus 5y ago

I was irrationally hoping Apple would offer a service that allowed for custom domains with accounts outside the family group. E.g. so I could let my extended family enjoy the benefits of our custom domain, but also have them manage their own billing direct with Apple. I'm just going to switch over to Fastmail (currently on an end-of-life'd gsuite setup).

StepBroBD 5y ago

this actually says everything i need

vucetica 5y ago

Another problem that I have is iCloud+ storage limit of 4TB. My family will very soon get very close to this limit with all our photos, videos and other stuff. Is anyone aware of any plans for an increase in near future?

daviddavis 5y ago

With the way that Apple prevents you from reusing Apple IDs, does it mean that if my Apple ID is blah@mydomainname.com and I migrate mydomainname.com (currently using G Suite free) over to iCloud that I can't set up blah@mydomainname.com?

domlaut 5y ago
You can. However, if you switch your Apple ID to a different address before you set up both the domain and the blah@mydomainname.com address to route to your account, you won't be able to set up blah@mydomainname.com for any account under your iCloud subscription for a year.
- daviddavis 5y ago
  I see. Thanks for the response! Great article too.

dfee 5y ago

Ooh. I have a question about migrating off Google Apps (which I pay $12/mo for across two domains - one mine, and one my wife’s). We’ve received a fair amount of links shared with us on Google Drive. Is there anyway to migrate off Google Apps AND retain access to those links? Or, am I basically stuck paying for this software for the rest of my life?

mark_l_watson 5y ago

I switched my domain to iCloud+ the first day it was offered. It took over an hour to get working, but I am happy enough with the service. I did switch to using Apple’s e-mail client apps for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Like using all e-mail services, I make periodic local backups in case I ever want to switch my domain to another service.

nvr219 5y ago

I will once again recommend Fastmail for any family that uses a custom domain. You legacy G-suiters have a couple months left!

merlinscholz 5y ago
Or ProtonMail, which is outside of the Five Eyes!
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  If you're doing anything substantiative enough to warrant investigation by a big government, that won't help much https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58476983 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58476983
  - merlinscholz 5y ago
    What are they supposed to do when their own government has a warrant? Ignore it and let the government shut down the whole site? This way they followed it without breaking anyones encryption, no back door, … this is a positive aspect in my view.
_nhynes 5y ago
I switched to Migadu yesterday after seeing some positive reviews here, and I’ve no complaints so far.
- kelvinquee 5y ago
  +1 Been with Migadu since 2017 with no complaints. Lost some mails on an account due to a migration of sorts on their end though that was eventually restored after a ticket. Michael and his crew are fantastic in progressively introducing new features that you may never find elsewhere (https://www.migadu.com/guides/index.html#features https://www.migadu.com/guides/index.html#features). Your end users may hate the sparse webmail features though that's nothing that Thunderbird or Outlook may not resolve. HTH!
5y ago

crossroadsguy 5y ago

I reckon some people have an inherent need to keep things inside Apple’s walked garden. I often see it becoming nothing short of an obsession. For the rest I’d, as someone who gave it a try - almost their entire services suite including TV etc a thorough try, highly recommend to stay out. Stay out even if they improve it (which I doubt) from its current state i.e. pathetic. - Apple is a weird company but they are weird because they can afford to be weird in the way they are because they know their fan base (their majority/core users) - Their software and services have revisions/major updates/upgrades tied with OS versions. - Even across OS versions they so deliberately don’t add the most essential features and literally “hold back” as if they go completely deaf on user needs - I believe it stems of a inferior software engineering prowess and a lack of confidence - that “let’s keep it for the next OS release” so that we announce on stage “For the first time in any iOS - you can control two SIMs separately - TrueSIM™ - or named something ridiculously absurd. - They have repeatedly shown they’re not callous about user needs or feedback but they’re openly hostile to it. - The “just works” smoke is very much cleared by now and they’re either just too incompetent or stupidly adamant still trying to ride the fan wave of “they know what we want” and fans giddily shoving everything down their own throats claiming as the best whatever Apple churned out. I skew towards the former though. - Also they do not have real competition with other softwares, more so on iOS and iPadOS, unlike Android (which I develop for but am not a user of) you literally don’t have options of softwares for many basic usage. - Now one can argue they like it that way - I don’t. They have anyway such a locked down App Store - not letting users choose browser, SMS apps etc is just a poor excuse that they can somehow get away with. I would just treat them as a device seller and keep my software and services from other competent places. Besides I like my eggs in various baskets. The last thing I want is my email from a provider which 100% coupled with devices from one manufacturer that is locked down like never before in history and their locking users out puts Google’s famous locking out to shame.

stillblue 5y ago
As someone who uses a lot of Apple devices, I agree with you 100%
blitzar 5y ago
> I would just treat them as a device seller If you believe the things you wrote - weird, institutionally dishonest, hostile to its customers and grossly incompetent why would you buy anything ever from them?

AnonC 5y ago

OP, not that this may yield any quick results, but this post should be emailed to Eddy Cue (cue@), the SVP of services, and Tim Cook (tcook@) at Apple. Some of the emails sent to them do get responses.

privacynerd99 5y ago

steelbrain 5y ago

I moved my emails to iCloud plus email domains less than a month ago. The import of existing emails was excruciatingly slow. I mean, 1 email per second on average, then failing with some random error halfway down the line (120k emails), even on retries, causing your migration agent to give up. I spent the better half of a week trying to get it to work, ended up moving to Google Workspace instead.