iCloud, and getting it to work!

[doubleohfive]

I'm trying to sync my Google Calendar with iCal, and have it available to me via iCal through iCloud.com, but am hitting some stumbling blocks.

Initially, I'd had some trouble setting up the "Find My iPhone" app, but finally sorted out my issues with it.

Now that it is activated (yay), I'm being prompted to sign in to iCloud.com.

Except iCloud.com won't accept my AppleID and/or password. I keep getting a notification to "check your email address for instructions on how to verify account." ... which I don't have or see and as near as I can tell, has never been sent to me.

It is maddening, as the AppleID and password worked in "Find My iPhone." And while this isn't the same password as my iTunes account, neither password allows me access to iCloud.

So help me TrekBBS, you're my only hope. What am I doing wrong here? Is it a Gmail to Apple fudge up, or is it something easy to fix? Or is it that I'm just a complete moron?

(Maybe don't answer that last question...)

[PsychoPere]

In looking at iCloud's Help on my computer, it says that you have to create an iCloud account before you can activate it on applicable devices.

Set up iCloud on your devices

Before you can use iCloud, you need to create an iCloud account (using your existing Apple ID if you have one already, or by creating a new one if you don’t), and then turn on the iCloud services you want to use on each of your iOS devices and computers.

iCloud account

The Apple ID email address and password you use to turn on and use iCloud services and to access the web applications at icloud.com.

You can use the same Apple ID that you use with iCloud to access many Apple services, such as the Apple Online Store, the iTunes Store, the App Store, and the Mac App Store. When you’re asked to sign in using your Apple ID, enter the same email address and password you used to turn on iCloud.

It sounds like what you've already tried should fit the instructions in the second quote. Maybe logging in with that Apple ID on the iCloud website will "add" the iCloud information to the Apple ID?

I don't recall having any difficulty when I recently set up iCloud, so I'm not sure what else to suggest. Maybe even changing the password through My Apple ID would be worth a try.

[doubleohfive]

Yeah, I've tried exactly what that second quote suggests numerous times and keep getting the "check your email to verify your account." message.

I'm honestly at a loss as to what to do.

[Sean Aaron]

Raise a support call with Apple. You can do this for free via the support website.

[Mooch]

I'm confused why you want/need to do this since you can already access Google Calendar in the cloud, and set it up on your iPhone/iPad/iCal without using iCloud.

Also "iCloud accounts" and "iTunes accounts" are the same thing. If you have 2 usernames and passwords, you have 2 accounts (Apple IDs).

I see in my email that I have recieved a "Please verify the contact email address for your Apple ID" email from Apple in the past, although I didn't seem to get one when I created my recent account that I used for iCloud. Did you check your junk mail?

[doubleohfive]

I checked my junk mail repeatedly.

I did wind up finding a workaround, after doing some Google research. I wound up discovering the problem was due to my two AppleID's being very similar - "Doubleoh" and "Doubleoh@gmail.com."

That's it. That was the big hangup. So I went in to the one I didn't want to use anymore and changed both the email address and password, got iCloud to resend the verification email to this new email address, then went back in to reverse/merge the AppleID to the email address I wanted it associated with for iCloud, iTunes, and the App store. Voila, done.

iTunes is good. App store is good. iCloud is set up, and I was able to sync my Google Calendar with iCal fairly easily (I was not aware I could do this without the iCloud; the instruction my friend at work gave me was to simply export my calendar from Google and then simply import it to iCal. Either way, I had been meaning to set up my iCloud account anyway, so I could activate "Find my Mac" and "Find my iPhone" apps as well.)

The only problem now is that I wanted to post the workaround I found that solved all these issues for me to the Apple Community Support forums, but the fucking site won't let me log in. It recognizes my username/email address and new password, but it won't let me access my old account. It just tells me to "create another username." So, I tried. I figure, fine whatever... except once I did, the site came back with "You already have a username registered with this account and may only have one." -- effectively, I can't access my existing account name, but I also can't create a new one. Fucking infuriating how difficult this entire process has been.

That said, everything else is set up and operating properly, I just can't access the Apple forums.

[Sean Aaron]

Yeah, there was some kind of update to the App/iTunes Store awhile ago that requires your Apple ID to now be a full email address. I got some kind of mail requesting that I change that so I just updated my existing ID rather than create a new one.