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I'm going all in with Apple and iCloud

R

Razeus

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
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It has occurred to me I've never fully used all of Apple's products and services. I've always had a combo of Apple hardware and Google/Microsoft to handle what they are good at.

But now, with iOS 9 around the corner, I feel that I'll actually start seeing some real benefit by going "all in" with Apple's services (ie using iCloud for more than just backups of my iDevices and actually using Siri) thanks to Proactive.

From Google, I'll be switching over:

Contacts, Calendars, and Maps. It's a no brainer and a simple sync these days. Maps works pretty well, but I may keep Google Maps on my device as a just in case. I'm still deciding on iCloud email as my primary, but the thought of changing all the emails on my accounts... I just may do the main ones.

From Microsoft,

Swapping out the Office packages for the iWork suite. Since I don't need anything for work related stuff, shouldn't be a problem for what I do use those apps for.

From Apple,

I'll actually start using Siri, Photos/iCloud Photo Library (200GB), and I've already decided I'm leaving Spotify and Pandora for Apple Music. I'll be using Reminders a whole lot more and taking it out of the Apple Apps folder that resides on the very last page of my devices.

Thoughts?
 
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I do most of this myself and do like to centralize as much as I can.

I have not gone with the iWork suite long term. I switched, found it worked fine but in the end have stayed with Excel and Word. The apps are the same size, work so well, and are so standard that it just makes it easy.

I still use an old email address along with my iCloud address along with Exchange along with a few others but in all cases but the iCloud I only sync mail. Exchange syncs mail and calendar. iCloud syncs everything like contacts, mail, calendar, etc.

My photos are in iCloud.
 
the new google photos app is just miles ahead of apple and this is not an opinion it's a fact deal with it.
 
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The upsides to going 'all in' with Apple are not nearly enough to offset the downsides.
 
I have been "all in" since the iTools days. I love my @mac.com email. There has been bumps in the road, but everything has worked more or less flawlessly in the past few years. Proactive is supposed to work on the "device" so you should still get the benefit of using other services like Gmail.

I think there are huge advantages (if you are ALL Apple) to using iCloud for Contacts, Calendars, Notes, Reminders, Ect. (I have used other "Apps" but the syncing is always iCloud.)

Mail, it works fine, but not worth "changing" from a well established address that you already have. (Although Gmail doesn't support Push naively, which is a bummer.)

Maps, I think Apple Maps works well in my area, and is getting better. I use it as my primary, but keep Google Maps on the phone in case.

iWork vs. Office. This is a tough one, and I am in between. I use iWork sometimes for personal things, and it works very well. However, I work in Audit, and we use Excel daily. So I tend to gravitate toward that most of the time. It is really a personal choice. iWork works perfectly for most people, and Office works very well with iCloud Drive.

Spotify vs. Apple Music. I will probably go to Apple Music just because it will integrate with my current (extensive) purchased music library. It's the integration really. Remains to be seen, if it doesn't function well, I will stay with Spotify.

Photos Sure Google may be doing whatever, but the integration of iCould Photo Library is unbeatable by Google. You don;t even know it works, all your photos are just in the photos app. You have no idea if they are on the device or not, and you really don't need to.

Things I don't use, Keychain, works well enough for my parents. However I need something beefier, 1Password. I use Overcast for Podcasts (Although I might switch back, the Apple one has improved greatly) I use Dark Sky for Weather. Kindle for Books (Mostly because I do my reading on a Kindle) Also still on Dropbox, I will reevaluate again when iOS 9 comes out with the iCloudd Drive app. (Also in desperate need of Selective Sync) I really just want to use iCloud Drive because I pay for 200 GB

I try to remain open and use what I think are the best for my needs, and in most cases the Apple solutions work just fine for me. I will say though, I have only Apple devices (personally) my work computer is a PC, and that is where this all breaks down. Going all in on Apple makes it difficult to mix in any other platform. Thankfully I can get iCloud Drive, Contacts, Calendar and Email to work on Windows fairly well.
 
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Ya, I've decided to keep using GMail as all my friends and social networks use that. I'll use iCloud mail for things that are not very pressing such as banking type stuff and forums. Besides the main techs force you to use their email (Yahoo's Flickr, Microsoft) for a log in to their services so it's not worth getting stressed about. I think I'll be stick with the Office suite too but I'll be working with both this weekend as I review.
 
IPL being inferior to GP feature wise.
IPL getting stuck trying to upload photos.
IPL using too much space on iOS even with optimize enabled.
ITunes Match not uploading.
ITunes match getting stuck when trying to download songs.
ITunes Match limited to 25,000 tracks.
Apple Maps being inferior to Google Maps when searching for generic things ("coffee shop").

Just a few. For me, not enough upside to going all Apple to offset what you'd be giving up.


Razeus said:
Care


Care to add more light to these downsides? I'm curious.
Click to expand...
 
Welp, I tried boys and girls. Going all in the Apple ecosystem simply doesn't work as I think it should.

iCloud Photo Library works good enough (though it makes you do all the work), but when you want to post a photo to an app like Instagram, the photos don't show up. You have to first find the photo you want in the Photos.app, let it "download", and only then would Instagram see it because now it's on the device. Or maybe Instagram needs to find a way to see these photos and grab it. Furthermore, Smart Albums don't even sync to your iDevice which is absurd. I can see them on my Mac, but the iDevice shows up as blanks. Again, absurd.

Apple Music - let's just say this ended up being a disaster and leave it at that. I had to restore my original library, and start a fresh iTunes library without adding any of my songs to it for AM to work as I would expect. Even then, the organization between what's in your playlists vs what's in your albums tabs is a mess. Don't get me started. It needs work. I'm going back to my old way of sync my music and playlists. Beats1 is cool though.

Contacts and Calendars are fine, as it should. I have no problem with Maps. Siri, as she stands is ok. I'm using the Notes app more as it's quick for jotting things done. A deleted my Simplenote account.

iWork is ok, but MS Office is much better. They are the masters at it. It's what they do. The iOS versions are simple, yet robust.

In the end, you have to use the services/apps that are best suited to the task. It's almost as if Apple barely looks at their competitors implementation in order to improve on them for their offerings and simply makes the app all on their own in the dark.
 
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Razeus said:
Welp, I tried boys and girls. Going all in the Apple ecosystem simply doesn't work as I think it should.

iCloud Photo Library works good enough (though it makes you do all the work), but when you want to post a photo to an app like Instagram, the photos don't show up. You have to first find the photo you want in the Photos.app, let it "download", and only then would Instagram see it because now it's on the device. Or maybe Instagram needs to find a way to see these photos and grab it.

Apple Music - let's just say this ended up being a disaster and leave it at that. I had to restore my original library, and start a fresh iTunes library without adding any of my songs to it for AM to work as I would expect. Even then, the organization between what's in your playlists vs what's in your albums tabs is a mess. Don't get me started. It needs work. I'm going back to my old way of sync my music and playlists. Beats1 is cool though.

Contacts and Calendars are fine, as it should. I have no problem with Maps. Siri, as she stands is ok. I'm using the Notes app more as it's quick for jotting things done. A deleted my Simplnote account.

iWork is ok, but MS Office is much better. They are the masters at it. It's what they do. The iOS versions are simple, yet robust.

In the end, you have to use the services/apps that are best suited to the task. It's almost as if Apple barely looks at their competitors implementation in order to improve on them for their offerings and simply makes the app all on their own.
Click to expand...

i like you learned the hard way when i decided to try the iphone6. that all the hype you hear about "it just works" is total nonsense. there is a ton stuff that doesn't work. and i was constantly have to go back to using my good old note3 to do easy task that iphone just won't or can't do. memo to self do not buy into the hype...
 
UAV said:
i like you learned the hard way when i decided to try the iphone6. that all the hype you hear about "it just works" is total nonsense. there is a ton stuff that doesn't work. and i was constantly have to go back to using my good old note3 to do easy task that iphone just won't or can't do. memo to self do not buy into the hype...
Click to expand...

It's more clear to me that Apple just doesn't understand cloud services. Even with all those betas, their launches are usually a mess. Their software updates end up completely gutted of features only to add them back a year or two later.

But this is Tim Cook's Apple. He's a numbers guy. Bottom line guy. He's definitely not a visionary. A visionary would have known that the iPhone 6 Plus needed 2GB of RAM. But when you focus on the bottom line, you get the worst iPhone experience I've ever had (reloads, reboots, crashes, etc.)

Then again, Google doesn't understand hardware, but nails cloud services.

Luckily, the two can play nice together. For now.
 
Razeus said:
...Then again, Google doesn't understand hardware...
Click to expand...

Well, Google doesn't make hardware. But the 3rd party phones and tablets they've chosen as their "Nexus" devices have generally been very good machines. My wife's LG Nexus 5 is still going strong, and is still a competitive phone in screen tech and performance. And their "Chromeboxes" get very positive reviews, but I haven't used one.

I'm no Google fan, but hardware has not been their shortcoming, IMO.
 
The generalizations being made here are entertaining. Thankfully we don't have to choose one or the other. We can have both. I can use my iPhone 6 and Google Photos and Google Music and Apple Music and iTunes Match and Google Maps, etc.
 
I only use Apple services with the exception of the random Google app. It's a love hate relationship. Generally everything works fine, but when it doesn't it can be a nightmare.
 
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