Is iCloud Mail the same as Apple Mail?

I have a Mac mini & a Mac laptop & an Android smartphone. I'm looking for a cross-platform solution for sending & receiving text messages between iOS & OSX & Android & Windows devices. I want to get a tablet & I'm leaning more towards an iPad than an Android tablet. Unfortunately, iMessage is not compatible with Android. Skype is cross-platform & can send & receive text messages, but it is wrong for me to require all of my friends & relatives to install & use Skype.

The only solution that I can think of is e-mail. I have received my Verizon e-mails on my Mac mini thru Apple Mail. I do have an iCloud e-mail address. Has iCloud e-mail replaced Apple Mail? If the 2 are separate, would my Apple e-mail address be something like "whatever@ applemail.com"? My Verizon e-mail is POP3 whereas Apple Mail is IMAP. I don't know if I'm able to set up my Verizon e-mail account as an IMAP account. I think that I can. I'll have to find out. Can IMAP accounts receive POP3 e-mails & vice-versa?

dcs.79c said:

I have a Mac mini & a Mac laptop & an Android smartphone. I'm looking for a cross-platform solution for sending & receiving text messages between iOS & OSX & Android & Windows devices.

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That would be ... text messages! To avoid confusion, we'll call cellular text messaging SMS and Apple's text messaging "iMessage."

Now if you had an iPhone, and your Macs were running Yosemite, then you'd be done. Thanks to a feature in iOS 8 (for iOS devices) and Yosemite (for Macs) called "Handoff," you could send and receive SMS messages on your Macs or your iPhone, or an iPad if you got one of those. However, the system depends on having an iPhone -- an Android won't do for that purpose.

Skype is cross-platform & can send & receive text messages, but it is wrong for me to require all of my friends & relatives to install & use Skype.

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Not at all. They're going to have to install SOMETHING that works across platforms, since you're on a Mac and at least some of them are on Windows, and Skype is one of the programs that works for this (I understand Facebook can make and receive calls through Messenger, but I will never ever install a separate Messenger app, so I don't know if it works). Skype is free and covers all four of the potential platforms here (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android), so it's a good choice for common chatting, audio calling* and video calling.

*to call cell phones or landlines on Skype, a small fee ($30/year) is required, but there are no other charges involved.

The only solution that I can think of is e-mail. I have received my Verizon e-mails on my Mac mini thru Apple Mail. I do have an iCloud e-mail address. Has iCloud e-mail replaced Apple Mail?

This could be a terminology issue, but Apple Mail is the default email program on iOS and Mac devices, and iCloud Mail is a service -- not a program -- that provides you with an email address (@icloud.com) and syncs all your email accounts (or just selected ones if you prefer) across your Macs and iOS devices. So I guess the answer to the question would be "no."

I don't know if I'm able to set up my Verizon e-mail account as an IMAP account.

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I don't know either, sorry. You'll need to ask Verizon, or maybe someone here has Verizon email and can tell us.

Can IMAP accounts receive POP3 e-mails & vice-versa?

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Yes, but. You can *forward* email from one account to another, but usually most people just want to forward an old POP email account to a newer IMAP account because POP sux and IMAP rox.

(or to put it another way: IMAP works great for modern email needs where people want to check and sync mail among multiple devices; POP is designed for single-machine people who don't check their email elsewhere, primarily.)

This could be a terminology issue, but Apple Mail is the default email program on iOS and Mac devices, and iCloud Mail is a service -- not a program -- that provides you with an email address (@icloud.com) and syncs all your email accounts (or just selected ones if you prefer) across your Macs and iOS devices. So I guess the answer to the question would be "no."
I know that there is an iCloud for Windows, so, iCloud at least works with Macs & Windows. I don't know if there is an iCloud for Android.

Both my mini & my laptop have Yosemite. I don't want to get an iPhone right now. I'm stuck with an Android phone until October of next year. Then maybe I'll change from Android to iPhone.

I downloaded the iPad manual. There's a feature called "Continuity" that uses an iPhone to send text messages from an iPad thru an iPhone to an Android phone.

*to call cell phones or landlines on Skype, a small fee ($30/year) is required, but there are no other charges involved.
My friends won't want to pay $30/year just to text me. As long as it's on the Skype network, text messages are free. That I have to figure out.

dcs.79c said:

I know that there is an iCloud for Windows, so, iCloud at least works with Macs & Windows. I don't know if there is an iCloud for Android.

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iCloud is not a "thing" - it's a collection of services, some of which are accessible from Windows. Messages, however, is not.

dcs.79c said:

I downloaded the iPad manual. There's a feature called "Continuity" that uses an iPhone to send text messages from an iPad thru an iPhone to an Android phone.

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This uses regular SMS and isn't a cross platform messaging service per se.

Ultimately, if you want something to work across platforms, you'll need a service that works that way. Facebook Messenger and Google Hangouts are two options well supported across all major platforms.