If you like me have your own domain for Email and at the same time enjoy using Gmail, one way to combine this is by using Google Apps. In the past this gave you access to the core Google Services like Mail, Calendar, Contacts and so on. If you were in need of additional services from Google you had to use a personal Gmail account for this. Nowadays it’s possible to use your Google Apps account for almost all of Googles awesome services, so that’s what I’ve been doing for some time now. This is a simple solution because I only need to sign in with one account to all services I use. When Google released the much hyped Google+ I was sure they would allow apps customers to sign up using their Apps Email, however this was not the case.

Luckily for me I found a workaround, I got a friend to invite me using my personal Gmail account, when I received the invitations I just copied the supplied link from the email, signed out from my Gmail account and signed back onto my Apps account. When I then opened the link I was able to sign up using my Google Apps account. Great success!

This trick did not last for long, the next day when I signed into my Email account on Google Apps I was asked by Google to make a few changes to my account. This change would allow me to use my Apps account just like a regular Gmail account and give me access to all of Googles services. Earlier I had a name@rdj.se account that worked for Google personal services and at the same time I had name@rdj.se for Google Apps. So now these two accounts with identical names were in conflict. Google provided a tool to move data between those so I would end up with just one name@rdj.se account.

When the move was finished I tried to sign into my Google+ account only to find out that I cannot access it because Google Profiles is not enabled for my account. After I failed to locate Profiles in my admin panel, where I can enable and disable services for my Apps account I went to Google to find a solution. Apparently Google does not allow Apps customers to use Profiles, hence making sites like G+ and Buzz unavailable. So now I’m stuck with beeing signed in with two accounts, one for accessing Email and Reader for example and one account just for Google+. The biggest downside with this is that the notification bar that is at top of all Google services when you’re signed into G+ is not giving me notifications from G+ when I’m in my Reader tab because they are on two different accounts.

Google did mention when they released Buzz that profiles was just a couple of months away and in Mars 2011 they told us that profiles for apps customers would come “soon”. Not sure if I can trust that. Right now I don’t want to put too much data in my Google+ account because when Profiles will be enabled for my Apps account I will switch over to it and lose it. So please, hurry up so I don’t have to use this crippled solution. And please hurry up, so the customer that is paying for this service with a premium account is not left out. We want to beta test G+ and provide you with feedback, don’t stop us from doing that.