After the update to Mountain Lion I see that I have four accounts in my Messages app (see this question for more information). I am a bit confused about what happened here, namely:
- The
@mac.comaccount has always been used for iChat, but now in
the Messages app it looks like it is used for iMessage - My Gmail account was used on my iPhone and iPad (I say "was" because
I haven't used iMessage on my mobile devices for a while), but now
it looks like it is used for GTalk in the Messages app - I have never used Bonjour for message exchange, why does it appear
now in the list of accounts?
Why have there been such changes? If I leave the situation as it is now, does it mean that I cannot receive iMessages on my Gmail account but only on the @mac.com account?
Best Answer
There are several things going on here. First, and easiest, Bonjour just appears as an option that you can configure if you have a Bonjour account. No need to worry about that.
As for iMessage, you can have more then one email address that other iMessage users can message you at. For example, when I open Messages settings I have a few different accounts in there. Bonjour is disabled, and two Google Talk accounts which I have disabled also. When I click on my "iMessage" account, my iPhone number as well as several email accounts which are linked to my Apple ID show in there. So I have my Gmail (which I use for my Apple ID), my @iCloud.com and @me.com email accounts, as well as two others that I have arbitrarily added in so that other users can text those emails as well.
Messages.app on Mountain Lion can manage multiple types of instant message at one time. For example, I can have a Jabber account, Google Talk account, and my iMessage account all tied into Messages. When someone "pings" any of those accounts, Messages "handles" that and I can reply.