Apple Account Emails & Phone Numbers

I'd like to throw this question out there for anyone who knows:

How are the emails and telephone numbers associated with an Apple account used? Are they actually used to send information (i.e. text messages, etc.) over or are they just used for validation purposes?

Example: the email associated with my wife's Apple ID email was through a former carrier and should have been invalidated when she cancelled her contract, yet, she can still use her Apple ID and send and receive messages over say, Messages on that email address. Been meaning to change her Apple ID and invalidate any accounts of hers associated with that email, but since they still work, there hasn't been any urgency or need. Thoughts??

The email address you sign up with Apple (for the purposes of establishing an Apple ID) doesn't have to still be valid -- its no longer used by Apple as an email address, its used as a username. However, if Apple needs to send you a notice related to your Apple ID, it will try to use your "old" one, so it is a good idea to update your Apple ID to your working email address for a variety of reasons. You can do this through a web browser or iTunes by visiting your iTunes account.

As for the messages, if you also have a phone number associated with that Apple ID for Messages/FaceTime, then it is using the phone number to send the messages.

Thanks for the quick reply.

So, even if I have my Messages app set to send and receive text messages as shown below, it's always using my my phone number to send? Even though it indicates the account being used is my iCloud address? I thought only SMS messages could be sent over voice.

I've always been a little fuzzy on this - how exactly communications are sent and how information is synced between devices - but would like to have it clarified...

There are 2 separate and distinct Apple accounts.

One is an AppleID. The other is an iCloud account. However, the two are or can be intertwined.

The AppleID is what is used to register your Apple hardware devices and is also used as the registered owner of all of your application and iTunes purchases.
There is no reason (that I can think of) why it would ever be a good idea to get a new AppleID. You will only be making a big headache for yourself as all the applications and iTunes content ever purchased - including the operating system - is now and forever tied to the original AppleID. Apple does not permit the transfer of ownership between AppleIDs.

For those that set up an AppleID with the old .mac or .me addresses, the primary email address of your account cannot be changed - although you should log in to your account and set up a secondary email for your account. Those that set up an AppleID with some other email address (yahoo, gmail, etc.) can update the primary email of that account. That is what your wife needs to do by logging into her AppleID account - here - not by getting a new AppleID.

An iCloud account is what enables the syncing of data between devices - Contacts, Calendar, Mail, etc. You can go into System Preferences - iCloud to see all the items tied to iCloud syncing.

Specifically related to the Messages app - it uses your AppleID account, not your iCloud account. Messages started out in OS X and was/is related solely to email addresses as a means of connecting to others. Those that have an iPhone signed into their AppleID will also have that phone # associated with the Messages app on their iPhone. Those that don't, will not. People sending you messages will be able to use either that phone # or one of the email addresses associated with your AppleID.

Your Mac and OS X uses the Messages app via WiFi to send messages and only uses email addresses.
Your iPhone (or iPad, iPod Touch with cellular capability) can do the same or it can use SMS/MMS to send messages using your cellular provider. Have short read here.

While iCloud uses an AppleID as your login, I repeat it is a separate account from your AppleID. You can log into your AppleID here and iCloud here.

An example of having separate AppleID and iCloud accounts. I use the original AppleID and that iCloud account in our household, since I was the first user of OS X. My wife uses the original AppleID on all of her devices so that all of our applications and iTunes content are owned jointly - no having to pay a 2nd time for any application, music, etc. that each of us may want on both our Macs and iDevices. She does have a 2nd AppleID, but it is not used. She does, however, use the iCloud account tied to that 2nd AppleID so that her devices sync her Contacts, Mail, etc., not mine, to her devices.

@bobtomay

If it doesn't sound too patronising, your explanation of Apple ID v iCloud account is a "tour de force". Very eloquent. You and your wife use your Apple ID and iCloud in a very similar way to my wife and me.

Ian

Thanks, was hoping it would clear up perhaps a little bit of the confusion.
It can definitely take awhile to understand how those two work together and which one does what.

Probably should have said Messages uses the internet (instead of wifi) in OS X vs a phone line or cellular service.

Still don't understand why Apple uses the term iMessage when there is no such app anywhere.
Maybe that stands for internetMessage?

Thanks, Bob, for your reply. That cleared up a lot and it also confirmed much of what I had already suspected. I'm still a little confused, tho, on whether text messages are sent over the specific email associated with the account currently being used, or some other way. For example, if you see below, my wife and I were texting and I was using the account shown to text her, which is an email associated with her former cell carrier - which she cancelled the contract for over a month ago.



Am I to understand that this email still valid?

We went ahead and changed her Apple ID email last night to a current email (gmail). It was still a chore (having to enter her password about a billion times) because we had to log out and back into iCloud and all other apps using Apple ID to log in, on both her MBA and iPhone...

Forget the email address - Repeat - The Messages app in OS X uses your "AppleID" account - period.

Messages are sent and received via the AppleID account - they do not go through the email server used to set up the AppleID.

edit:
This is also why the Messages app cannot be used to send text to a Windows machine - there is no app for Windows that recognizes AppleIDs. If it used the email server, there would already have been a horde of Windows apps created permitting Windows users to text with Mac users.

edit 2:
Once an AppleID is set up with a 3rd party email address, that email address is never verified as to whether it is still a functioning email account by the AppleID account.

Got it! Thank you!

bobtomay said:

Still don't understand why Apple uses the term iMessage when there is no such app anywhere.
Maybe that stands for internetMessage?

Click to expand...

My turn to be eloquent and helpful!

The term "iMessage" refers to what is sent by Messages when it is not using SMS, ie the "blue bubble" messages, versus the SMS green messages.

So, you use Messages to send iMessages and SMS messages.

chas_m said:

My turn to be eloquent and helpful!

The term "iMessage" refers to what is sent by Messages when it is not using SMS, ie the "blue bubble" messages, versus the SMS green messages.

So, you use Messages to send iMessages and SMS messages.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. That IS useful. I never caught on to that, but now that you mention it, it makes sense...

bobtomay said:

There are 2 separate and distinct Apple accounts.

One is an AppleID. The other is an iCloud account. However, the two are or can be intertwined.

The AppleID is what is used as ownership of all of your application and iTunes purchases.
There is no reason (that I can think of) why it would ever be a good idea to get a new AppleID. You will only be making a big headache for yourself as all the applications and iTunes content ever purchased - including the operating system - is now and forever tied to the original AppleID. Apple does not permit the transfer of ownership between AppleIDs.

For those that set up an AppleID with the old .mac or .me addresses, the primary email address of your account cannot be changed - although you should log in to your account and set up a secondary email for your account. Those that set up an AppleID with some other email address (yahoo, gmail, etc.) can update the primary email of that account. That is what your wife needs to do by logging into her AppleID account - here - not by getting a new AppleID.

An iCloud account is what enables the syncing of data between devices - Contacts, Calendar, Mail, etc. You can go into System Preferences - iCloud to see all the items tied to iCloud syncing.

Specifically related to the Messages app - it uses your AppleID account, not your iCloud account. Messages started out in OS X and was/is related solely to email addresses as a means of connecting to others. Those that have an iPhone signed into their AppleID will also have that phone # associated with the Messages app on their iPhone. Those that don't, will not. People sending you messages will be able to use either that phone # or one of the email addresses associated with your AppleID.

Your Mac and OS X uses the Messages app via WiFi to send messages and only uses email addresses.
Your iPhone (or iPad, iPod Touch with cellular capability) can do the same or it can use SMS/MMS to send messages using your cellular provider. Have short read here.

While iCloud uses an AppleID as your login, I repeat it is a separate account from your AppleID. You can log into your AppleID here and iCloud here.

An example of having separate AppleID and iCloud accounts. I use the original AppleID and that iCloud account in our household, since I was the first user of OS X. My wife uses the original AppleID on all of her devices so that all of our applications and iTunes content are owned jointly - no having to pay a 2nd time for any application, music, etc. that each of us may want on both our Macs and iDevices. She does have a 2nd AppleID, but it is not used. She does, however, use the iCloud account tied to that 2nd AppleID so that her devices sync her Contacts, Mail, etc., not mine, to her devices.

Click to expand...

Have just printed this, laminated it and filed in the first drawer (labelled "Important Stuff") in my cabinet. Pity Apple didn't provide this concise account when we first got our macs.

chas_m said:

My turn to be eloquent and helpful!

The term "iMessage" refers to what is sent by Messages when it is not using SMS, ie the "blue bubble" messages, versus the SMS green messages.

So, you use Messages to send iMessages and SMS messages.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I did a little more googling about that yesterday also.

iMessages is actually the name of the messaging "service".

So, when you send a message, it gets sent via the iMessages service.
Then the blue text bubbles show your texts are being sent via the iMessage service and the green bubbles you're texting via your cellular service.

In iOS, you can turn the iMessage service on and off via the Messages preferences in Settings.