Apple is a 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. The fact that this happens to offer some privacy benefits is just a strategy credit[1]
I'm among the guys who use FOSS everywhere and it's just hard to setup and maintain own infrastructure like Desktop+Laptop+Phone+Cloud+Services integration. So I wonder if you know better options.
It’s similar to the reason MS stopped making a mobile OS.
And if you’re wondering, Google’s solution also integrate pretty poorly with the competition’s products, if they can get away with it. But in their case it’s not because it doesn’t make sense, it’s to force people into using G stuff.
Maybe this will change if Apple guarantees some privacy features but without solid technical features to compete, it’s still a tough sell.
Microsoft failed with their Windows mobile strategy and uses a different playbook, trying to get everything in Azure, no matter the specific client.
It wasn't only the lack of Google apps mind you, but they do have a certain degree of kingmaking ability with whether they put apps on your platform or not.
If you want third party on Android, Microsoft’s 1TB of OneDrive as part of Office 365 (can buy annual subscriptions at a discount from Amazon as well) seems the better deal.
I think that's the point though: some of apple's products are quite appealing, but really only make sense if you buy into their ecosystem entirely. I could use Chrome without using anything else from Google. I can subscribe to a Google Group without having a Gmail account (though they're not making it easy, or good tbh). I can even use Android without Google – although at that point it's not much of a Google product.
iOS is looking like a nice mobile OS but I'm not interested in buying an iPhone. iTunes may be a good service but I won't be able to use it on Linux or my phone.
Apple doesn't sell ads so there isn't a financial benefit to them releasing iCloud Drive on Android.
Are you complaining that there is no app?
Up-to-date Chrome on Android.
Most others. Google’s services work on Linux, macOS & Windows (and, I assume, the browser-based stuff works on the BSDs, too). Even Microsoft’s stuff works many places.
But Apple just locks one out if one is not using an Apple device. Two of my brothers’ families use iCloud exclusively to share & comment on family pictures; I’m locked out of my family’s life because Apple thinks it’s too difficult to display images and text on a web page (and, of course, because I value my freedom too much to use an Apple device).
And yes, I am bitter about that. The photos-and-comments stuff is bog-standard; there’s absolutely no good reason it should only work on iPhones & macOS computers.
I’m actually hoping someone will take a second to post ‘you dolt! Apple has had a website for the last 3 years to support exactly that!’ That’d be great. But that last time I checked — they didn’t.
I see them more as the 'use all of our products and we will make life convenient for you' company.
I run my own infra (caldav,carddav,imap/smtp) and all of it intergrates seamlessly into iOS and macOS. I tried the same on android and it did not work seamlessly with anything except google services.
Sure, their own stuff works better with their own stuff, and yes, the watches can't be configured without a phone, but that's also true of android.
What I'm referencing is that the OS and Apples own applications are built to support what I would be consider very sane defaults (as in, it supports me doing my own thing, without the need for plugins/modules).
My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators to get things up and working, and they were very poor quality and would run in the background murdering my battery life. (and I had to pay for it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.dav...)
IMAP/SMTP Were less of a problem but it always /felt/ very third party when using tools for that purpose, where google mail was truly first class. On iOS I don't feel this way at all, once I had push notifications set up the experience was identical (if not a little better with my own server due to apples SMTP servers getting overloaded).
So, you're right when you say that Android is more modular and supports stronger composibility of the system. But the experience of actually using it is so incredibly poor that even with Apple doing it's bullshit (no small phones, no headphone jack, protruding camera) I have very little inclination to go back- the "feeling" I get is that it's funnelling me to third parties, whether it be google or samsungs awful "samsung cloud ecosystem"
That you have to buy/install CalDAV AND CardDAV connectors is indeed a weird shortcoming of Android. On the flip-side you had the option to do so.
Also, in the age of everything-SaaS, a one time payment of $10 for basic infrastructure isn’t all that bad.
> IMAP/SMTP Were less of a problem but it always /felt/ very third party when using tools for that purpose, where google mail was truly first class.
What Email app did you use? Gmail (which obviously treats Gmail better) or something else?
> But the experience of actually using it is so incredibly poor
Different strokes to different folks I guess.
I never experienced Android to be that different (or worse) when using my own standards-based providers.
That said iOS feels a lot more coherent if you stick to Apple apps all the way. But not being able to set another default browser or email client is just weird.
in this, we agree.
> What Email app did you use? Gmail (which obviously treats Gmail better) or something else?
Samsung mail, I couldn't find any decent alternatives, maybe this is my shortcoming for not knowing what is available?
>Also, in the age of everything-SaaS, a one time payment of $10 for basic infrastructure isn’t all that bad.
Except I'm paying to use a connector to use /my/ infrastructure. But, I don't mind paying for software, so long as it's good and well integrated. DavDroid was half decent, worth the money if you consider the effort involved, but not "good".
Oddly enough, one of the best options I found was Outlook. No really!
Simple to setup, easy to use. No need to fiddle with 2000 settings.
Android have quite good open source project for this:
https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge
Obviously its not what Google intended, but Android is just better when it comes to support of open source alternatives. Yet obviously as I posted already in this topic it's hard to build convenient infrastructure for yourself in general.
I was using Android as a daily driver for over 6 months and I didn't find anything in the play store that was of sufficient quality. (DAVDroid being the closest to decent, but it ran in the background and didn't do 2-way-sync correctly etc)
FWIW I was using a Samsung Galaxy S8, and that model does not have the ability to be flashed (and I think it doesn't to this day)
EDIT: I'm wrong, there is unofficial S8 images for lineageOS as of March 2019: https://www.xda-developers.com/lineageos-16-unofficial-samsu...
More than 2 years after the phone was released though, and only for one type of S8 (Exynos). But at least it's possible now.
I'm glad it works for you, it wasn't a very nice experience for me and it's certainly not comparable to having the OS designed and built for my use-case in mind, but I certainly don't think it's "unworkable" just that Apple provides a superior product in this example.
:)
The EU things differently. For us privacy is very much a fundamental right, such as right for access to clean water/air, right for free access to information (internet) etc.
Both Google and Facebook have been hit with lawsuits in the EU. The laws are there and companies violating them are being punished. One could argue that the punishment is not large enough, if companies still repeatedly violate the laws. It'll take some time though until we see whether companies change their stance on privacy. One company which doesn't need any 'encouragement' is Apple, that's pretty clear now.
Every non tech person I know has some notion of FB being creepy but not a single one has changed their online behavior in any way. Everyone cares until it's actually time to delete your account.
Looks good on paper but in reality what's being done about it? Apart from a few token court cases. People are still dumping their data wholesale in to social networks and EU is mostly powerless when faced with these companies (FB, Google).
> right for access to clean water/air
Here in Brussels you can't throw a rock without hitting 10 diesel cars that come with almost every desk job and include free diesel no questions asked. They spend most of their time sitting in some of the worst traffic in Europe.
Air quality is constantly at the worst end of the scale, both indoors and outdoors and takes years off your life. At the same time there's more and more calls for regulation of Lime scooters.
EU cares but mostly just pats itself on the back for churning out reports.
I suppose its a cup half full type deal.