Apple has taken huge steps to ensure the privacy of your email inbox, and one particular feature it has introduced at WWDC 2021 is attention-grabbing: the ability to protect you from spam.
Of course, you would have other e-mail services already offering spam tags or an automatic repositioning of such tagged e-mail into a "spam folder." But Apple has taken it to a whole new level.
iCloud 'Hide My Email': How it Works
With "Hide My Email" on the iCloud Plus, you can create unique and random email addresses that will still deliver email to your personal inbox. As the name of the feature suggests, it basically hides and keeps your primary email address private, Cnet reported.
iCloud users can share these email addresses when filling up forms or signing up for a website. This would allow you not to share your primary personal email address.
No, you are not sending out fake email addresses, just extensions of your primary e-mail that you can manage with a tap.
This would lessen the number of lists that would carry your actual email address. It also allows users to create and delete as many email addresses as they want, allowing control of who can reach them through email.
iCloud 'Hide My Email': How to Get This Feature
You can take advantage of this feature by first subscribing to iCloud. When you are filling in details in an online form, for example, you just need to tap the field and then choose Hide My Email. A box will then appear showing a random e-mail address, with a note you can fill up to remind you what you are using the email address for. You would then tap "Use." Managing these random email addresses is done by going to iCloud>Hide My Email.
Hide My Email will be built natively on Safari, Mail and iCloud settings, Cnet added. This will be part of the extensive software updates in the iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and iCloud.com.
Other Premium Security Features on iCloud Plus
According to Apple, Hide My Email will come with new premium features on iCloud Plus, which includes iCloud Private Relay and the enhanced HomeKit Secure Video support, at no additional cost to subscribers.
The new Internet privacy service, Private Relay, is built into iCloud. It lets you connect or browse the web in a more secure and private manner, MacRumors noted. Private Relay in Safari will ensure that all Internet traffic that passes through your device is encrypted, and as such no one could access and read such data, including the the Internet service provider.
User requests are deployed through two disparate Internet relays. The first relay would assign an anonymous IP address that would map to the region, and not the actual location. The second relay decrypts the Web address you want to visit and forwards them to their destination. Such separation of Internet traffic data protects your privacy since no single entity could determine your identity and the sites visited.
Expanded support for HomeKit secure video is likewise available, allowing you to connect to more cameras in the Home app while enjoying encrypted end-to-end storage for home security videos that will not count against your storage capacity. HomeKit Secure video also makes sure that spotted activity on the security cameras will be analyzed and encrypted using Apple devices at home before their safe storage in the iCloud.
