13th
Not to be a whiner, but…
Oh, iCloud.
I know, I know there are back-end reasons galore that justify the kind of nonsense that nontechnical users are expected to endure in order to use today’s magical electronic devices and services. I know, I know I don’t understand or I’m grossly underestimating the complexity of these services or I don’t respect the work of the developers or I’m small-minded or I’m missing at least one critical point. I know, I know, I know. But I’m a UX nerd - not a code nerd - and, as such, it is my discipline to force a certain type and amount of critical distance between (imagined and real) technical constraints and the UX scenarios I create and describe.
People like me are like attorneys defending many thousands of long-aggrieved participants in a class-action suit against The Machines. My professional purpose is to make things right for the people who are going to use those things. Sometimes that means revealing complexity, but a lot of times it means making things as simple as possible. Show me the personas and primary use-case scenarios for iCloud, and I’ll bet they envision users for whom simplicity is a precondition of use. It’s a boring truism that Apple’s DNA is defined by its devotion to those users. The point of simplicity, with them, is to enable nontechnical people to make use of complex devices, features, and services. If the simplicity isn’t there, those people don’t make use of the devices, features, and services. If the chasm is too big, fewer people will jump.
So, iCloud - an ambitious, complex service requiring an even more ambitious and complex migration process for users from numerous and different states of pre-existing use. A lot of tricky engineering challenges. I get it.
Now, if you’re a first-time Apple user on or after October 11, 2011, you’re in luck. You’ll set up iCloud and be asked to choose a corresponding MobileMe account (even though MobileMe is going away, but don’t think about that, right? Right.) as part of your first-run experience. All iCloud services will be associated with that new email address from the start. Easy peasy, Apple style.
If you’re an existing Apple user with a MobileMe account that is also your Apple ID, you’re in only slightly less luck. You will have to “upgrade” your MobileMe account to an iCloud account. That entails some OS updating on all your devices, then a press-and-pray process on the MobileMe website. After a few hours, if all went well, you’ll find yourself in a position not unlike first-time Apple users: All iCloud services will be associated with your existing MobileMe address from here forward.
But woe to the longtime Apple user whose Apple ID corresponds to a non-MobileMe email address. For as many years as I can remember, I’ve used a gmail address as my Apple ID. When I wanted to automatically sync calendars and contacts between devices, however, I needed a MobileMe address - so, a few years ago, I got one of those too.
Now, I have long understood that it is impossible to change your Apple ID to use a different email address. Similarly, I understand that iCloud needs to use my Apple ID if I am to sync iTunes purchases. So I was mentally prepared, albeit slightly irked, when I discovered that I was going to have to “upgrade” my MobileMe account to an iCloud account in order to continue syncing contacts, calendars, emails, bookmarks, etc between devices. And I was similarly aware, albeit a little incredulous, that I’d need to use my Apple ID in order to use iCloud for device backup, purchase syncing, photo stream, and some other “cloud features.” After all, you can’t change an Apple ID’s email. You can’t merge your MobileMe account with your existing Apple ID if that ID uses a different email address. EXCEPT…
When I finally turned on iCloud yesterday, I was forced to create a new MobileMe account to associate with my Apple ID (which, like I mentioned earlier, is tied to a gmail address). The same Apple ID I cannot tie to an existing MobileMe account. I had to tie it to a new one. Not an existing one, though. Just a new one. You’re getting this, right?
I came to this process with two Apple-related email accounts, and I walked away with three. That’s not how it should work. I already didn’t want two email accounts involved in managing what I see as a single set of data. Here should have been an opportunity to simplify matters, not make them more complicated. That’s what Apple’s historically been all about. That focus on simplicity is what a decade of switchers love about Apple products. Its absence is noticeable, and painfully so, in this iCloud rollout. As an investor and a user, my eyes are peeled for its return.
