Originally published at: Apple ID to Be Renamed to Apple Account, Disrupting Independent Documentation - TidBITS
Starting later this year, Apple will replace all instances of “Apple ID” in its operating systems and documentation with “Apple Account.” Documentation that covers multiple versions of Apple operating systems will become more awkward.
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Good catch!
I wonder if when talking about a ‘consistent sign-in experience’, Apple is referring to confusion amongst ordinary (non-techy) people. When helping people I often ask them if they’ve signed into their ‘Apple account’ because sometimes when I say ‘Apple ID’ I get a ‘huh’ in response. I only have anecdotes, but Apple presumably has data and maybe this has been an issue that comes up in Apple Store interactions. Because ‘Apple ID’ sounds like something specific, maybe people assume it’s something distinct from the account they’ve created for Apple/iCloud.
Can I put in my vote for the TidBITS style guide when this comes to pass* – I actually think a mix of the two approaches you’ve suggested sounds best:
Continuity features require that you be logged into the same Apple Account or Apple ID.
I don’t think the ‘in pre-2024 operating systems’ caveat is necessary, it’s clear enough without. And I think that looks cleaner and matches what people see better than ‘Apple Account/ID’.
* I am fully aware that TidBITS is a benevolent dictatorship and my vote is meaningless. 
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My 2 cents…
“Continuity features require that you be logged into the same Apple Account (previously known as Apple ID).”
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Both good suggestions!
I’ve just updated the article slightly with a comment from @joe about how Apple ID is an identifier whereas Apple Account is (presumably) the entire account, which has both an identifier (the username) and a password. You have an Apple ID password, but your Apple ID is an email address, not a password.
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Adds to the confusion/nuisance of Apple IDs going from xxx to xxx@mac to xxx@me to xxx@icloud !
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Those are only a subset of Apple IDs. My Apple ID is none of those.
That’s how your Apple mail address has changed. But you can use any e-mail address for an Apple ID. And in the past, you could use names other than e-mail addresses as well, but at some point, Apple forced me to change that in order to keep using it. 
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5 posts were split to a new topic: Merging of Apple IDs
2 posts were split to a new topic: Strange email about my Apple ID from Apple
You know, all this time, I never realized this (simply because the ID is also associated with a password).
So often I’ve had complications with a customer’s Apple ID - for when they first signed up with Apple they used something like “Joeschmoe@hotmail.com” as the ID string. Subsequent tries to authorize their ID got conflated with their real hotmail address -not realizing the id was a user name not an email address (confusing !) and got locked out continuously. I wish Apple provided better solutions for Apple ID problems. I recently ran into a problem where Apple wouldn’t verify a (long term .mac address user) Apple ID because it conflicted with some other “user name” - that they had assigned a me.com address - this cropped up in the last year- the user didn’t have a problem until something changed with address servers - Apple refused to let go of this other assigned “me” address or add it to the good one, or give us a clue as to what they thoughthe Apple ID was -even though they admitted it was an error - and there were Apple cloud services issues and verification failures - Apple’s solution: create a new Apple ID (oops Account!) for the user…then I suspect something happened on Apple’s end because the “data clog” (things like contacts were really slow (days!) to update, some services timed out) and verification notices went away mysteriously.(icloud generates an error) Still- Apple did not openly resolve this issue nor follow through with support or information for it… even though during a screen share - the problems were documented (bomgar not apple screen share because that didn’t work either!) and Apple closed the ticket as well. Weird. It’s one area where they can do better.
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I wonder if Apple will ever figure out how to merge two Apple ID, err Accounts? I have two that, because Apple can’t figure this out, I have to maintain. The first was the one I had to create using my AOL email when iTunes was released while the second was created when I joined Dot Mac. Currently, I would either lose EVERYTHING I bought from ITunes over the last 23 years with the former, or everything linked to the latter: email, ALL my Apple hardware, etc, over the last 22 years. It continues to baffle me as to why Apple hasn’t figured this out yet. Of course if there was a way to make a profit doing so, they would jump on it right away! 
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This is strange, because it was always my understanding that a dotMac address was always assigned the same MobileMe and iCloud dot com address, similar to a MobileMe address getting the same iCloud dot com address. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone say that something like that happened. (In other words, when Apple changed from dotMac to MobileMe, the left hand side of the “@” was automatically the same me dot com address, and when Apple changed from MobileMe to iCloud dot com, the left hand side of the me dot com address was automatically the same with iCloud dot com after it. (But never the reverse; a new iCloud dot com cannot use me dot com or Mac dot com.)
(I wrote out me dot com and iCloud dot com because discourse helpfully tries to make them hyperlinks. by the way.)
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When Apple discontinued Dot Mac, and replaced it with MobileMe, they assigned me a me.com address using the same username as my mac.com address. Ditto when MobleMe was discontinued and replaced with iClod, I was given a icloud.com address, again with the same username. So I have THREE email addresses, two of which I do not use or want. I suspect when they discontinue the current iteration and replace it with an Apple Intelligence one, I’ll get another UNWANTED email address at AI.com!
It was indeed bizarre but Apple insisted they couldn’t fix this. Since my customer mostly uses google cloud services - it’s not a big deal for him but some stuff just doesn’t work and gives us an unexected error notice. Apple Support saw this and witnessed this - but left us on a dead end street. I have many customers who log in with Appleids that originally were “soandso at isp dot com”.
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I have same issue because “in the beginning” an Apple ID/logon wasn’t an email address at all — and you can’t merge accounts!
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Coming from a UNIX background, it was always practice to have a handle for your Administrator account and a different handle for your user accounts. I followed this practice when Apple wanted me to have an Apple ID. Apple ID insisted on using my full name in the iCloud.com address. But for security reasons, I set up my user email address that did not have my full name.
Since then Apple has caused frustration on occasions I need to enter my Apple ID - for some things Apple wants my ‘administrator’ email address and for some things Apple wants my abridged user email address. On rare occasions, the successful Apple ID has been my old dotme.com email address. I’ve given up attempting to figure what is behind this inconsistency.
Given the history of Apple ID, I foresee Apple Account introduction just adding more Apple ID issues for Apple customers.
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We can now look at multiple high resolution monitors in virtual reality, but Apple can’t give us a way to merge Apple IDs/Accounts.
Why? Because the former makes them money, the latter does not.
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I noted in another reply that this is…at least anecdotally…possible. There was a case that I believe I saw here but it might have been elsewhere…and the user had ended up with 2 AppleiDs and somehow Apple was to blame for the problem…so they merged the accounts after verifying somehow that he/she owned both. Since Apple universally denies it is possible…mynguess is that it is only possible manually and the impossibility was demanded by either their lawyers or was a result of not wanting to have to do a flood of manual merges.
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I would love to get rid of my me dot com and icloud dot com email addresses. For some reason my mac dot com address (which I only use with Apple) has flown under the radar, while the other two (which I’ve never used for anything) get tons of spam. I really hope they don’t give us another one.