iOS5 tips – iCloud and @me.com mail

Ok as I install and configure and use iOS5, I plan to post any tips I figure out, here (in the blog), with a title that starts with “iOS5 tips”, and with a tag of iOS5. I’m not going to attempt to classify or organize them, I’m just going to plop them here.

Here’s two to get the ball rolling:

If the iCloud (@me.com) mail account is failing to send mail:

• Open the Settings app.
• Choose “iCloud” and then the email address next to “Account”.
• Scroll down to Advanced and choose the email address (yourid@me.com) next to “Mail”.
• Choose whatever is next to “SMTP” (for me it is “iCloud SMTP Server”).
• Choose “Add Server”. Put in “smtp.me.com” for the Host Name, the part before the @sign from your @me.com email address for the User Name, and your iCloud password for Password (even if the iCloud and @me.com account names are different, even if you never set up the email password).
• “Ok” your way out, open mail, delete the one that was failing, and create a new mail. If it doesn’t send again, try a full restart (by holding down the power button and the button on the bottom of the screen all the way until you see the apple signifying it is restarting. Try to send mail again.

Actually the second tip is embedded already in the first – but I’ll point it out again because it’s tricky. If you elect to go the multiple Apple accounts route ( a different account/email address for iTunes than for iCloud, and a non- @me.com email address for the iCloud account, and you want the iCloud mail – then you end up with a new @me.com email address that you are never required to set up a password for. Trust me on this, the password is the same as the one for your iCloud account, despite the fact that they are different email addresses. In fact I think you can use the @me.com email address to log in to iCloud too, which is weird because it doesn’t technically seem to be an Apple account.