[SXX]

I'm not in any way an Apple fan and only look at their ecosystem via VM, but I curious. What company have more convenient integration of both own proprietary services and 3rd-party one? As I see it with Apple you can be at least fairly sure their products going to have good integration within their closed-garden ecosystem. With anyone else not even this is guaranteed and you'll likely be bombarded by ads.

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.

[rauhl]

> What company have more convenient integration of both own proprietary services and 3rd-party one?

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.

[robjan]

I can use Google Drive on pretty much anything. Now try using iCloud Drive on an Android...

[killjoywashere]

Seriously... Even Microsoft came around to putting Office on Android. Apple? Nowhere to be seen.

[johannes1234321]

Why should they? They want to sell you the Apple experience, where iCloud is fully integrated. Integration into Android will be half backed, which gives a bad impression.

Microsoft failed with their Windows mobile strategy and uses a different playbook, trying to get everything in Azure, no matter the specific client.

[close04]

Because it makes no financial sense for them. MS’s Office is ubiquitous and has a market beyond the borders of a specific OS. Apple’s solution isn’t nearly as competitive as Google’s or MS’s. It’s a “better than nothing” approach as far as I can tell. Even Google’s solution only competes because of the synergy with the ecosystem (Android), not because of technical superiority.

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.

[freehunter]

Microsoft only put Office on Android after their own mobile OS failed. It's not like it was some super altruistic effort on their part.

[jsgo]

unfortunate (but necessary) move, considering part of the reason it failed is because Google yanked support (and later certification of Microsoft's implementations of) Google services like YouTube.

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.

[threeseed]

Google Drive increases the data you have with Google and encourages you to use other services like Gmail or GSuite. This increases the time you spend with their apps which increases the chances of clicking an in-app advertisement.

Apple doesn't sell ads so there isn't a financial benefit to them releasing iCloud Drive on Android.

[izacus]

Apple sells iCloud subscriptions though. And yet you're not worthy of their privacy if you didn't buy their completely DRM locked devices where they control even the content you're allowed to see.

[dijit]

You can access https://www.icloud.com/#iclouddrive from any device.

Are you complaining that there is no app?

[jvolkman]

"Your browser is not currently supported."

Up-to-date Chrome on Android.

[dijit]

Interesting, chrome on linux works. (via qt-webengine).

[jsgo]

Sure, but if you’re not using Apple products, why would you want iCloud Drive? I mean if it wasn’t deeply connected with iOS and I could slot in any third party, I’d probably never pay for iCloud Drive either.

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.

[tadzik_]

> but if you’re not using Apple products, why would you want iCloud Drive?

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.