Will I have to buy a new macbook to get iCloud?

Question

I have the Intel Core Duo, not the Intel Core 2 Duo and therefore I can't upgrade to Lion and can't switch my mobileme to iCloud.  I am very frustrated as to how to do this.
I don't have a PC and would like iCloud to use my existing email address and just not sure how to do this as every time I try and switch on one of my mobile devices iPad2 and iphone4S it tells me to switch using my mac or PC.... grrrr I can't switch from either because they don't have the OS to handle the switch or the hardware.
Please can someone advise me what I should do... I don't have the money to buy a new macbook and there's nothing wrong with this one anyway so why should I have to buy a new one?
Thanks in advance for tips, advice and help.

Answer 1

If you do not migrate from MobileMe before the end of June your email address will cease to function.
You can migrate using a Snow Leopard Mac (you don't say what system you are using - please always do) - go to http://me.com/move and when you are asked to confirm that your Mac has Lion, lie and say 'Yes'.
However you need to be aware of the implications. This will be the situation on Snow Leopard if you migrate:
Your email, calendars, and 'Find my iPhone' will be migrated to iCloud. Contacts and Bookmarks cannot be migrated from a Snow Leopard Mac.
Your iDisk, together with website hosting and Gallery, will continue to work as before until next June.
Syncing of Dashboard Widgets, Dock Items and Keychains between Macs, and Mail Accounts, Mail Rules, System Preferences, Signatures & Smart Mailboxes between Macs & iOS devices, will cease altogether.
You will be able to access email and calendars on the iCloud website at http://icloud.com provided your browser is reasonably up-to-date.
You will not be able to sync contacts or bookmarks from a pre-Lion Mac.
You will be able to enter the server settings for email manually in the Mail application and access your email.
You will not be able to sync your calendars directly.
Some people have been able to set up calendar syncing by using the method detailed here - this is an unsupported hack and may not be reliable, and may stop working at some future point. BusyCal is an iCal-like calendar application with extra facilities: it can sync with the iCloud Calendar while running on Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion.
There appears to be no method of syncing contacts (though Address Book on a Mac can be synced with Google or Yahoo address books - I don't know how reliable this is).
Note that f you have MobileMe mail set up to collect mail from external POP accounts you should cancel this before migrating, or you may find it still working in iCloud (where it isn't supposed to) and with no way of stopping it.
You should be able to migrate using Leopard, with similar effects. You may not be able to do so on Tiger unless you use a browser other than Safari - I can't confirm this. You can set up the mail in Tiger - the method is different and is detailed here.