domlaut

Cool idea, but I do wish an account wasn’t necessary to use the app.

You can. However, if you switch your Apple ID to a different address before you set up both the domain and the [email protected] address to route to your account, you won't be able to set up [email protected] for any account under your iCloud subscription for a year.

It's a reasonable policy for Apple-owned Apple IDs on their public domains (@icloud.com, @mac.com, @me.com), but I don't see how it makes sense for privately owned domains you're already in control of the DNS for. You could use any other mail provider or routing service and get access to any emails that way -- then do a password for any other service where the address used was on the domain you were in control of.

I personally haven't noticed deliverability issues. It'd still be nice to have the messages signed without having to use the web-based iCloud Mail.

Unfortunately not, DKIM doesn't work on either Apple's desktop or iOS/iPadOS Mail.app (aka. Apple Mail). OTOH, at least they set the correct Return-Path unlike some others that leak your Apple ID through the header instead.

Clever! Are you running your own email server, or is there a provider/relay other than Google that can route based on regexes?

I use an email like this for our ISP at home -- one time I was asked what the email on the account was. Much easier to remember and dictate something like [email protected] than one of Apple's "Hide my email" emails.

It fits in great with the privacy narrative Apple has been pushing for and marketing for a while now. With their announcement of focusing on services, I think it makes perfect sense. Definitely not an easy problem for them to tackle, especially with what must be decades of legacy systems and various relays (Mac.com, Me.com, iCloud.com, ...).

This was something I was hoping to get around with using a separate relay like ImprovMX or Cloudflare's Email Routing -- that'd allow you to have a bunch more assuming you didn't need to use them for outbound emails -- discovering issue #2 in the process. And issue #6, if you did want to use them for outbound emails :-)

You're right -- this is something I missed mentioning. As of right now, it's still only the web-based iCloud Mail that makes use of DKIM. Using any other client/app will deliver your emails unsigned.

Would you mind if I updated the article crediting you for the DKIM addendum?

Valid point -- sorry the header is getting in your way. Out of the available theme for Ghost I found this one taking away the least from the actual content - I'll look into getting rid of the header bar as traffic subdues not to break anything now :-)

Microsoft does hit a great middle ground -- but there's still far too little players IMO. Would enjoy if we also had Apple as a contender -- especially if they'll remain as big on their service businesses as they claim.

Thanks! Appreciate the feedback, glad I was able to provide some relevant insight.

I'm hoping shining a light on these pain points turns some heads at Apple so we end up with a better service and one more good competitor in the hosted email space -- if you don't mind it being Apple, of course. :-)