New iCloud setup with Mac and iPhone

Question

I just setup iCloud for both my Mac and iPhone and still my gmail does not update between the two.  I used the setup for both as shown on the Apple site.  I thought this was supposed to be easy.  Any ideas as to what I might be missing?

Answer 1

I would have thought that the Apple products would deconflict the message traffic from the email accounts, via iCloud.
I'm afraid you thought wrong. Modern email accounts do not work like that. Email messages, and the status of those messages is stored on the email server. If you setup the same IMAP account on numerous devices, the email is stored on the server and each email client reads the status of the messages from the server. Keeping things "in sync" is a function of the email server, not the email client.
I was under the assumption they were innovative enough to think about using their own products to help users manage ALL email, through Mail and iCloud, on several devices.
Since Apple do not have control over Google's mail servers (or anyone else's, apart from their own), it is not technically possible for them to do what you are asking. Creating a whole new, Apple-only proprietary email protocol would not be innovative at all, when the IMAP email standard already exists and is used everywhere.
As already mentioned, if you want to keep a Google Mail account in sync across multiple devices and computers, you use the facilities that Google provides for doing so i.e. their IMAP (or Exchange) email servers.
If you want to keep an Apple iCloud (@me.com) email account in sync across multiple devices and computers, you use the facilities that Apple provides for doing so i.e the iCloud IMAP email server.
Same applies to Hotmail email accounts, or Yahoo! Email account. Email clients do not keep email in sync - the server does.
To learn about how IMAP email works, read this: http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/889/