Finally time to ditch Apple ecosystem?

[RedRage]

I know people have different needs, but I could live without the Apple Watch. The only thing I find myself using it for is health tracking when I'm at the gym. I used Garmin devices years ago before Apple Watches so I could easily go back to Garmin. Apple Watch was fun at first but having your notifications vibrate on your wrist all day is kind of annoying. I disabled a lot of them. I am trying to simplify my life and move away from always being connected. After my current Apple watch croaks I probably will not replace it and get a Garmin specifically for fitness tracking.

 

[LeeW]

I move about in terms of desktop/Laptop. Currently really enjoying my custom built PC (pics 1/2 way down). Given I code and use web servers a lot the experience is generally way better on macOS vs Windows but it works fine on Windows.

I do find myself asking why do I really need anything macOS related? More from the point of view I am using two OS's and two systems. Not coming up with any convincing arguments other than personal preference. But having said that, I am not tied to either and whilst I can use both there is no actual need to pick. I like the choices of using the M1 Mac Mini for x and the PC for y. But it is getting to be a pain, no just more time-consuming managing both for different tasks.

Going to make a decision at the end of August as I am only using Windows for the whole month. If I don't go back to macOS there is no need for it will be my view.

On the phone side, I really don't care what I use, for me, it is used for talking more than anything else. But I love the Apple Watch and Apple Fitness so I am tied to iPhone. For tablets, I have never found anything as good as the iPad so happy to stick with it.

 

[Aneres11]

I am currently more invested in the ecosystem than I ever have been. Not really intentionally either.

I have my iPhone 12 Mini, AirPods Pro, M1 iMac 24, my S3 AW and my iPad.
Do I have them all talk to each other? Nope. Could I live without them all? Yep.
I don’t like my Apple Watch all that much. The only exercise I do is play tennis, and the AW remains garbage for that. I couldn’t care less about “competing” with friends on closing bars so all of that stuff is disabled for me. I use it as a way to receive notifications but if I forget to wear it I don’t miss it one bit.

I LOVE my M1 iMac. Hardly touch my iPad now so that’ll get sold no doubt. My AirPods Pro will work with other devices so no biggie there. I also don’t find them to seamlessly switch between my current Apple devices very well either. It never works like it should for me. Always have to go to settings and hit connect when switching.

So all in all, despite being in the ecosystem now, I’m about to jump straight back out. With Google Photos backing up all my iPhone pics, it’s easy to grab them from the cloud on any device.

 

[Fried_Gold]

I’m pretty deep into Apple ecosystem but I’ve been slowly moving to other services over the last week or so, will be interesting to see what happens in another couple of weeks.

 

[Cycom]

What else do we switch on? Custom rom'd pixel? The usability isn't there in android devices.

Normal Samsung with Google drive synced? Samsung pre-installs Facebook on their devices that you cannot remove. Only "disable". Btw. Google scans ALL of your photos when you sync them in.

Use iphone with sevices like Tresorit? And disable iCloud photos + drive? Golden plan.

You can’t delete Facebook from a Samsung phone? lol wtf

 

[Klyster]

You can’t delete Facebook from a Samsung phone? lol wtf

I have an S21 ultra, I don't have Facebook installed.
So I installed Facebook just now, then I uninstalled it as I was curious.
Seems to not be true, who would have thought?

 

[Shanghaichica]

I am currently more invested in the ecosystem than I ever have been. Not really intentionally either.

I have my iPhone 12 Mini, AirPods Pro, M1 iMac 24, my S3 AW and my iPad.
Do I have them all talk to each other? Nope. Could I live without them all? Yep.
I don’t like my Apple Watch all that much. The only exercise I do is play tennis, and the AW remains garbage for that. I couldn’t care less about “competing” with friends on closing bars so all of that stuff is disabled for me. I use it as a way to receive notifications but if I forget to wear it I don’t miss it one bit.

I LOVE my M1 iMac. Hardly touch my iPad now so that’ll get sold no doubt. My AirPods Pro will work with other devices so no biggie there. I also don’t find them to seamlessly switch between my current Apple devices very well either. It never works like it should for me. Always have to go to settings and hit connect when switching.

So all in all, despite being in the ecosystem now, I’m about to jump straight back out. With Google Photos backing up all my iPhone pics, it’s easy to grab them from the cloud on any device.

Re AirPods pro switching between devices. It worked for me in the beginning but hasn’t worked again for months. I also find that using my Apple Watch to unlock my Mac is very inconsistent. Has been for years. It can work perfectly for months and then stop
Working for months.

 

[Aneres11]

Re AirPods pro switching between devices. It worked for me in the beginning but hasn’t worked again for months. I also find that using my Apple Watch to unlock my Mac is very inconsistent. Has been for years. It can work perfectly for months and then stop
Working for months.

Yeah, inconsistent is definitely the word I'd use too.
Sometimes if I'm listening to music on my iPhone and then click play on a YT vid on my iMac they will just instantly switch and I'm like "omg!". But that's only happened once or twice...
Every other time I've had to go to Bluetooth settings and click to pair.

 

[ian87w]

You can’t delete Facebook from a Samsung phone? lol wtf

Yup. And Facebook put services as system apps. These won't show if you just look at manage apps in the settings. You have to show system apps and they will appear. And yes, you can only disable them, not uninstall.

And not just with Samsung. They also exist on Huawei and Xiaomi phones.

 

[Klyster]

Yup. And Facebook put services as system apps. These won't show if you just look at manage apps in the settings. You have to show system apps and they will appear. And yes, you can only disable them, not uninstall.

And not just with Samsung. They also exist on Huawei and Xiaomi phones.

What Samsung phone are we talking about?
I can uninstal Facebook on my S21 ultra.
In the past they put a stub holder of facebook on the phone, it want the app but you couldn't delete it, you still needed to download and login to facebook for it to do anything.

No, Samsung isn’t pre-installing Facebook on your phone

Early this morning, Bloomberg reported that Samsung doesn’t let users uninstall the Facebook app from some of its phones. The story states that Facebook’s app comes pre-installed in select Samsung devices and users can only disable it, but

thenextweb.com

 

[RedRage]

I played with the Samsung 21 Ultra at Best Buy. It's really really nice. The iPhone looks so outdated next to it.

 

[skulls17]

I played with the Samsung 21 Ultra at Best Buy. It's really really nice. The iPhone looks so outdated next to it.

I have the s21 ultra and 12 pro max. The screen on the s21 ultra blows away my iPhone. You are right about the iPhone looking outdated next to the s21 ultra.

 

[RedRage]

I have the s21 ultra and 12 pro max. The screen on the s21 ultra blows away my iPhone. You are right about the iPhone looking outdated next to the s21 ultra.

Yes I’m thinking of getting it ?

 

[skulls17]

Yes I’m thinking of getting it

The s21 camera is decent too. Especially the macro and the zoom.

 

[RedRage]

The s21 camera is decent too. Especially the macro and the zoom.

Ill probably wait and see what the S22 brings in January. I think that’s when they’ll release it.

 

[ian87w]

What Samsung phone are we talking about?
I can uninstal Facebook on my S21 ultra.
In the past they put a stub holder of facebook on the phone, it want the app but you couldn't delete it, you still needed to download and login to facebook for it to do anything.

No, Samsung isn’t pre-installing Facebook on your phone

Early this morning, Bloomberg reported that Samsung doesn’t let users uninstall the Facebook app from some of its phones. The story states that Facebook’s app comes pre-installed in select Samsung devices and users can only disable it, but

thenextweb.com

S21, A71, even my tab S7FE.
And I'm not talking about the Facebook app. I'm talking about these.

These are put as system services, hidden from normal views. Facebook also did the same for Xiaomi phones.

 

[alex.hostettler.2001]

I like using Macs personally, since it just feels simpler and more asthaetic than windows. But my cell phone I rly don't care, I just use it for calling and texting. So it doesn't matter what ecosystem it is in. But I understand what you mean, if you feel Android will work better for you than definitely give it a try!

 

[Klyster]

S21, A71, even my tab S7FE.
And I'm not talking about the Facebook app. I'm talking about these.

View attachment 1822090

These are put as system services, hidden from normal views. Facebook also did the same for Xiaomi phones.

Yeah, not on my S21 ultra, and I haven't uninstalled or hidden them.

 

[ian87w]

Yeah, not on my S21 ultra, and I haven't uninstalled or hidden them.

Is yours a carrier version? Carriers might have separate deals with Samsung. It might also be regionalized.

 

[Klyster]

Is yours a carrier version? Carriers might have separate deals with Samsung. It might also be regionalized.

No, not a carrier version, just a standard unlocked s21 ultra, global dual sim.

 

[MisterMillz]

I'm too slowly moving away from Apple devices. I just bought a samsung Tab S7 256GB tablet to replace my Ipad Mini (Mom needed a new ipad) and I love it.

The only apple devices I have is iphone, watch, & apple tv 4k box.

The only thing that stinks is that the Apple TV app on the google play store cannot be downloaded (think it's only for google tv for now), so you can't download any of your purchased movies & TV shows. If anyone has a way to do download your purchased movies & tv shows, let me know. Apple TV + shows can be viewed via the web, however.

App called Movies Anywhere. Connect your google play, Amazon prime and iTunes log-ins. It will collect every movie that isn't OS/company-protected (not tv shows unfortunately) and place them into its own library. From there it will send that info to each connected log-in.

I have about 463 movies and a few tv series I've purchased through iTunes over the years. Out of that 463, 291 were able to be connected. They automatically show up in my google movies library. Pretty cool and better than starting from scratch!

 

[nickdalzell1]

I have an S21 ultra, I don't have Facebook installed.
So I installed Facebook just now, then I uninstalled it as I was curious.
Seems to not be true, who would have thought?

I was able to uninstall it as well, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G, but it was a Straight Talk variant which 'OTA' installed a ton of third party apps on first-run including Facebook, 1Weather (this one I actually love), My Account, TikTok and others. They were all able to be uninstalled but I kept 1Weather as it's a nice feature-rich app.

Those wanting to keep the Apple TV App should look at a Fire TV Stick. It's cheap, and the app is on Amazon's store and works perfectly fine. No update nags is nice too (I don't believe in updates)

I recommend a range extender though since a Fire TV Stick doesn't like being more than 5 ft from a wifi router for some odd reason.

 

[sracer]

I was able to uninstall it as well, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G, but it was a Straight Talk variant which 'OTA' installed a ton of third party apps on first-run including Facebook, 1Weather (this one I actually love), My Account, TikTok and others. They were all able to be uninstalled but I kept 1Weather as it's a nice feature-rich app.

Those wanting to keep the Apple TV App should look at a Fire TV Stick. It's cheap, and the app is on Amazon's store and works perfectly fine. No update nags is nice too (I don't believe in updates)

I recommend a range extender though since a Fire TV Stick doesn't like being more than 5 ft from a wifi router for some odd reason.

I agree with your recommendations regarding the Fire TV stick as an alternative. Amazon seems to strike a good balance of wanting to pull people into their ecosystem but yet still offer value for those who want to simply use their devices with minimal interaction with Amazon's services.

On a side note, my two Fire TV sticks are about 15 feet and 25 feet away from my wifi router and haven't experienced any issues. I don't have an expensive or sophisticated router so I'm curious as to why my experience is different from yours.

 

[Infinite Vortex]

There was a time that 80% of my tech spending would go to Apple. Today though Apple are lucky to get 20% and that will be even smaller moving forward. Like yourself I need to support Windows (x86) and up until the M1 it was a no-brainer for me to buy Macs. I much prefer macOS to Windows but at the end of the day I'm going to prioritise what pays for it all… getting my work done and M1 is never going to facilitate that.

At the end of the day though I have a huge "eye-opener" moment when I made a proper effort at switching to Android 3 years ago. That proper effort required me to do a big disconnect from iCloud. And the big gotcha in getting out of Apple's ecosystem is iCloud. The moment you don't tie yourself to iCloud you can come and go really easily.

To be honest I'm just tired of being controlled in everything I want to do and on top of that, having waiting potentially years for Apple to offer it while that make it sound like they invented it. Went to update my iPhone Xs setup to match my Galaxy S10 setup and it was downright painful, and in the end, impossible.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I agree with your recommendations regarding the Fire TV stick as an alternative. Amazon seems to strike a good balance of wanting to pull people into their ecosystem but yet still offer value for those who want to simply use their devices with minimal interaction with Amazon's services.

On a side note, my two Fire TV sticks are about 15 feet and 25 feet away from my wifi router and haven't experienced any issues. I don't have an expensive or sophisticated router so I'm curious as to why my experience is different from yours.

Mine is a old Fire Stick (~2016) for one. It works for a while but then starts rebuffering and ultimately complains about the network being disconnected. Might be my house as well. The router is at the opposite end of it, and behind a lot of doors and walls. Router is a NetGear NightHawk AC1900 router (it wasn't cheap, but with its own problems I should have gotten another Linksys like my backup that runs my IoT stuff), and after I got my range extender out, put it in the center of the house, and connected the Fire TV to it, everything was flawless. For the record, it only showed 1 or two bars for the actual router; range extender shows a full signal.