Hacker News Reader

Comment by l8rlump | Hacker News Reader

They want to sell hardware. I'm reminded of this every day when I can't use Apple Reminders and Calendar properly on non-Apple devices. I have an Apple phone but use a non-Apple computer. You used to be able to have a web interface to Reminders, but they changed it and now you can't add tasks in the web interface. No worries then, let's use Caldav. Hmmm, can't add a Caldav server to iCloud anymore. Ahh, we can add a Caldav account to iOS! Nope, it doesn't obey the sync schedule. You can set the schedule to anything but it just syncs when it wants to, maybe every couple of hours if you're lucky. I might be cynical but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a ploy to get more people into buying more of their devices.

View on HN

This shit is why I use Google products on my iphone: gmail, calendar (with reminders), contacts, etc. (Paid version at that: I pay for google workspace, even for personal use)

I'm not locked in to the Apple ecosystem: I can use it on my Linux desktop, or switch to an Android phone at any time.

Is that a solution, or an additional poison?

Why would it be an additional poison?

It's solving problems in my life. I have a calendar, it's synced across all my devices, I have no fear of lock-in, and I have full control over my data without fearing about my account getting locked (as I pay for Workspace). Same for email, same for contacts.

What's the poison there?

You don’t have full control of your data. Google isn’t some Mecca of freedom, it’s an advertising company.

Google is a company providing me a service I pay for, with a contract I signed.

Do you think my data would be safer if I used UnknownCalMailCompany Inc, a company with zero track record in terms of privacy, safety, or long-term viability?

Even those whose risk assessment leads to them not wanting to give Google their personal data should be able to acknowledge that Google's pretty good at not leaking user data onto the Internet.

To the extent that they make their money from user data, their advantage is in keeping the underlying data for themselves, not in giving it to other people.

(I use a fair amount of Google tech, including paying for hardware and services, but I won't use their search engine or browser)

I guess since your only two options are, for some reason, "Google" and "UnknownCalMailCompany Inc," Google seems to be the choice for you.

Fortunately, many of the rest of us live in the real world where there are more than just those two options.

What’s your alternative? You’re not suggesting any.

And yes concretely, the two options if you want cloud are either the usual suspects (ms google apple), or unproven companies.

I've used Fastmail for over 10 years now, but they may not be "proven" enough to be a True Scotsman.

Google has 50x more people working in security than fastmail has total employees.

Good job moving those goalposts.

Thanks, you too.

I’m sorry but yeah, if you want a concrete solution that is on par with what google offers in terms of privacy and security, you can’t go with a random company and everything I said before stands. And in this scenario, fastmail IS a random company no matter how long you’ve used them.

I don’t understand how you define privacy - your data is used to sell adverts. Is that not part of the equation?

None of my data is used to sell adverts. You seem to completely miss that I’m using google workspace. I have a contract with google, I’m not using free shit.

What's wrong with a flip calendar or a moleskin diary? Color me old-school but why does every single thing, especially your most private things need to be online?

Why do you care how I organise my life?

I value being able to ctrl+f my thousands of meetings across several years.

Sounds like you’ve just chosen to lock yourself into a different vendor, only one that integrates less elegantly with your device.

There is no vendor lockin with Google when it comes to hardware, the services even work in a browser

> There is no vendor lockin with Google when it comes to hardware

That’s not intentional though, it’s just that their hardware hasn’t been that successful.

I don't think you understand the definition of lock-in.

Yes.

So instead you're locked to Google. It's fine, many people are because of Gmail. Other people though would rather be locked to Apple.

I’m not even sort of locked to google.

And this is why I don't want to buy any Apple device. It seems that it's all or nothing for them. If you have a mix of apple and non-apple devices then you'll have all sorts of compatibility problems.

> I might be cynical but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a ploy to get more people into buying more of their devices.

I’d bet on just not testing that use case because they don’t care enough about it. Thus not catching and never fixing any arising issue or regression.

Maybe, but combined with the downplayed stripping of features from the iCloud web interface, I'm still skeptical.

> You used to be able to have a web interface to Reminders, but they changed it and now you can't add tasks in the web interface.

I just used iCloud.com. Seems to work fine for adding reminders. Are you talking about an API, or the iCloud web UI?

iCloud web UI. Sorry, I just tried again and you can add tasks, but you can't set a due date or time, which I rely on heavily. You used to be able to do this until they went to the "new" Reminders. They gave us a prompt to upgrade to the new reminders, but you don't realize that you lose these features, and as far as I can tell, you can't go back after you "upgrade".

I just set a due date and time on a reminded with the web UI. Add the item, click "details", click "on a day", set a date and time. It's not easy, or a nice UI, but it's functional for this visual user. I didn't check the accessibility.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com