[FirmwareBurner]

>Apple has been around for a pretty long time as far as tech companies go.

So have 100 year old car companies, and I'm old enough to remember many people saying the same things about their favorite car brand in the past ("I'm only buying X brand because they make quality stuff and they never broke my trust") and I also know they changed their opinion recently after a couple of decades.

And changing car brands is way easier than changing smartphone ecosystems, should one of the two players decide to screw you.

My point is people should not be fanboys of any corporation. History has proven they can always turn against their customer, even if Apple so far hasn't done it, but there's time, company management and culture can, and will always change with time, and with constant shareholder pressure for infinite growth there's plenty of opportunities in the future for the tides to turn, mark my words.

[pjerem]

> And changing car brands is way easier than changing smartphone ecosystems, should one of the two players decide to screw you.

In what world ?

I have switched from iOS to Android and vice versa multiple times while still driving the same car.

[FirmwareBurner]

>I have switched from iOS to Android and vice versa multiple times while still driving the same car.

Did your app purchases form the Google Play Store automatically transfer to your Apple App store, and did your photos off your Google drive transfer to your iCloud, or vice-versa?

Read my comment again, I ware referring to the ecosystems not being interchangeable, not the phones themselves.

The incompatible ecosystems is the tie-in that keeps people tied to their respective walled gardens, not the physical HW phone brick itself which is interchangeable. Once people invested enough money in one ecosystem, they're less likely to switch to the competition as all their data and purchases are trapped.

[Johnny555]

Not sure why you got downvoted, it’s purposely hard to switch ecosystems, I’m in the middle of switching from android to IOS, but still have over a decade of data in gmail, google photos, and google drive. And I waited until my wife was willing/ready to switch because it’s harder to share across ecosystems. Fortunately we don’t own many apps (mostly things with external subscriptions like news, streaming media, etc) so purchasing replacement apps wasn’t painful.

[scarface_74]

> still have over a decade of data in gmail, google photos, and google drive

And apps are available for iOS that let you access all of them. If you install Google Drive on the iPhone, your drive shows up along side iCloud in the Files app and open/save file dialoga

[Johnny555]

Yes that’s what I’m doing for now, but I left android because I didn’t like sharing so much data with google, now I’m still sharing that data with google, and now apple too.

[scarface_74]

Google Drive to iCloud Drive:

Do just the opposite of this

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36803905

I’m sure there are ways to migrate your email. Thunderbird?

[FirmwareBurner]

>Not sure why you got downvoted

Fanboys don't like you pointing out the hard to swallow truth pills. They expect comments to validate their lifestyle choice, not contradict them. Any contraction is a direct offense to them.

> I’m in the middle of switching from android to IOS

At least for you it's easy, because all google apps exist for iOS, but switching away from iOS is absolutely impossible as there is no iCloud or iMessage for Android, so all your data remains hostage with Apple if you try to move.

[scarface_74]

> At least for you it's easy, because all google apps exist for iOS, but switching away from iOS is absolutely impossible as there is no iCloud

1. Download Google Drive for iOS

2. Go to the Files App

3. Select all in your iCloud Drive

4. Copy

5. Go to your Google Drive in the Files app

6. Paste

Just like you would copy files from one drive to another.

[pjerem]

There is a web version of iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos.

They are not "great" but they are more than enough to download a zip with all your files and all your photos. From there you go where you want.

[scarface_74]

> Did your app purchases form the Google Play Store automatically transfer to your Apple App store, and did your photos off your Google drive transfer to your iCloud, or vice-versa?

Which apps would those be that you have to buy on iOS and Android separately? Most non game apps are subscription based that work across platforms.

My photos are already sync to Google Photos on my iPhone and if I had an Android device, I would just download the Google Photos app.

Music bought on iTunes has been DRM free since 2008 and Apple Music is available on Android.

Apple, Google, Amazon and a few other platforms and most of the studios participate in MoviesAnywhere where you buy movies from one platform and it shows up as purchased on the other platforms

What data is “trapped”?

[scarface_74]

> Did your app purchases form the Google Play Store automatically transfer to your Apple App store

Since every app that I pay to use that has an Android version is subscription based, yes.

> and did your photos off your Google drive transfer to your iCloud, or vice-versa?

Since I can download the Google Drive app on my iPhone and it shows up right next to iCloud Drive on the Files app and in File dialogs. Yes.

As far as photos from iCloud to Google, just download Google Photos on your iPhone and sync your photos.

Anything else?

[FirmwareBurner]

>As far as photos from iCloud to Google, just download Google Photos on your iPhone and sync your photos.

That's not a direct transfer, it's a workaround which requires you to have free storage on your phone greater than the amount of photos you have.

[scarface_74]

No it doesn’t. Google uses the standard photos API.

[HumblyTossed]

This is why, every where I can, I only use a company's web app and not their installable app. The few apps that I use as apps, I buy for each platform. This is also why I avoid subs for most apps. Not paying a sub for both platforms for a calendar app.

[throwaway894345]

It’s not that hard to pivot ecosystems. Unless you have extremely high-end devices and an extremely low end car, you can almost always move from Apple to another ecosystem for a lot less than changing cars (assuming you’re buying new devices and a new car OR used devices and a used car). You can even make the move gradually over months or years.