I’ve had my iTunes account since August 2, 2007. It’s worth aruond € 12.000 in iTunes/AppStore purchases and I still have all my receipts to prove it. In the beginning of MobileMe you had set up a separate account. So I did. Then MobileMe became iCloud and iTunes became iCloud and I ended up with two separate iCloud accounts.

I’ve been using my transformed MobileMe account that now is an iCloud account for eMail, Calendar and contacts, keychains, reminders etc. and my AppleID iTunes account for iTunes purchases. I never had any other option, because Apple doesn’t transfer iCloud eMail addresses to other iCloud accounts.

With the merging of local accounts and iCloud identities in OS X Yosemite this has evolved from being annoying to being a serious obstacle when trying to access my data. I set up my Yosemite Beta using my Apple ID/iTunes account, as that is what I always used for my purchases at Apple, but now I cannot log into my iCloud account to get to my saved bookmarks, reading list etc. in the system preferences — because the local accounts in Yosemite now are iCloud identities.

This issue has been known for a long time (since iCloud first was introduced), I write about it here, because it is an issue for many people and because it has never been properly addressed. I actually contacted the AppleCare Team about this, talked to the Apple Support staff and nobody knows a solution — other than getting a new eMail address.

In order to use Yosemite when it comes out, am I supposed to toss my iTunes purchases so I can keep my iCloud eMail address or should I toss my eMail address so I can keep my iTunes purchases?

I really hope Apple addresses this issue, otherwise, when changing my eMail address, I’ll probably move to my own domain and a payed hosting contract to avoid things like this in the future.

Update Aug 6:

The current Yosemite Beta now allows to log out of the iCloud account you enter during setup/installation and to log into another one. This removes the link of your Apple ID from the user-account and allows you to use your converted MobileMe/dotMac account for eMail calendar etc. while keeping your AppStore and iTunes Purchases on your ex-Apple-/iTunes-ID. So it remains confusing but at least you now can keep your eMail address and your purchases instead of having to choose between the two.

The issue remains: You still cannot merge your accounts. For someone like me who doesn’t even remember all the places I entered my MobileMe eMail address, merging the two accounts into one would be the only option. There is absolutely no hope at all to update my eMail address in all the places — that would be including the comments I left on websites that want you to enter your eMail when you add one.

But I’ve learned from the issue and now have eMail aliases for this purpose like garbageCollection@[mydomain] for the newsletters and comments and one appleID@[my domain] for my iTunes Account… but that is just ridiculous.