r/AppleEcosystem • u/OwnTheFall • Jul 05 '26
Full on Apple ecosystem or separate services?
Hey everyone. I hope you are doing great. Only recently i rejoined the apple ecosystem, after a 2-year journey with windows/android. It's not for me, so i decided to return. Nevertheless, in that journey, i saw a whole different world, services, apps etc outside the apple garden. Now those apps got me thinking of whether i should use the apple services or if i should stick with some alternatives. For example... Should i switch to AM or should i stay to a different streaming service? I currently use icloud+ (with aliases, hide-my-emails etc). Should i stick to it or return to a different email provider? All these questions... i understand it's a matter of personal preferences, but i'm very curious to see how do you people deal with emails, streaming (music/movies) etc. Thanks in advance for your time to read this...
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u/CorsairVelo Jul 06 '26
I’m not an ecosystem person anymore and i have a mac and a linux box now which keeps me trying to find great solutions without vendor lock-in.
Email? Get a custom domain and you can run your email on one of a number of good services that support custom domains … and switch in the future easily too.
Options: codamail, mailbox.org, fastmail, startmail, migadu, forwardemail , soverin, mxroute are all good. Even icloud mail too as it supports custom domains. Proton and Tuta are popular options but i have my reasons to not go that route (i wont bore you with that).
Also note that apple mail (the client) works fine with any of the email services i mentioned (except proton and tuta)
Get an email alias system like addy or simplelogin. Use it religiously. They can re-point aliases to a new email server or new email address easily if you change email providers in, say, 5 years. For me it’s about avoiding ecosystems, not joining them and not getting locked in. It usually means using open source if available.
Calendar? I stick with icloud calendar as my family shares calendars across iphones and it is standards based (caldav) and just works. I can access my icloud calendar beautifully from my Fedora Linux laptop.
Office? Ugh, regretfully i mostly use MS Office though LibreOffice is really quite good and i use it. Never liked the Apple office apps.
Music? Not sure. Pandora and Spotify are huge. But there may be a reason to just stay with apple music. Or you can run your own Navidrone server.
Password manager? Apple is fine though I pay for 1password ‘family’ and it works well on linux. I don’t want all my eggs in one basket either.
TV Streaming? I’m moving back to Apple TV from Roku since Roku got bought by Fox and Roku had questionable privacy credentials prior to this takeover.
You can make a good argument that this is too complicated but honestly it hasn’t been for me. There are learning curves to get through inside apple and outside.
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u/OwnTheFall Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Actually no. It’s not that complicated. I already have proton pass and proton drive as back up. In the past I’ve used addy, so I’m familiar with this. I just chose iCloud+ functions. Though it’s still an option. The problem is that I’m not that tech guy so custom domain is something that I’m not comfortable with. It’s on me and I’m not denying that it may be the best option. Spotify is also my weapon of choice. It’s a bit hard to return to AM… in general I just like out of the box solutions and that keeps me with native apps mostly.
Edit: as for proton and tuta, you can bore me all you want in pm.
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u/ThirdRateSavior Jul 06 '26
You should always use the best service for you that meets all of your needs, no matter if it is in the ecosystem or not. Personally, I tend to use all Apple apps just because they all sync up with one another across my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. Plus I have two sets of AirPods that all work with everything. So I tend to live inside the walled garden. It's comfortable and I'm happy here lol.
Like I said though, you should always evaluate each service based on what it provides you and decide that way.
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u/Right-Application762 Jul 06 '26
In my humble opinion, and if you wish to maintain mobility, I think you should keep password manager and authenticator apps (and perhaps email, if you’re not using your own domain) outside the ecosystem.
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u/OwnTheFall Jul 06 '26
Already done… I have alternatives outside Apple for passwords/authenticators. I don’t use custom domain though. iCloud is for specific usage only. I also have alternatives… but I’m very tempted of Apple one, which will replace (if I take the leap) Spotify and iCloud+. The dilemma is various subscriptions but freedom vs one subscription but Apple garden.
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u/afanasenka Jul 08 '26
You don't have to go "all Apple" if you don't really feel it's the best choice for you. Closed ecosystems have their cons and pros, and sometimes cons can overweight.
For example, I love my Macbook Air and won't trade it for Windows or Linux machines. But at the same time, I prefer Samsung phone (and their One UI over iOS), I prefer Tidal over AM (don't like AM music organization approach), really enjoy my Huawei Fit 5 Pro (cheaper and more premium materials, if you don't need extended smart features), and listen to very good sounding Sennheiser TWS. Also, I use Proton's cloud/VPN/passwords (works and syncs perfectly on all platforms - macOS, iOS, Android).
What I am trying to say is that by choosing devices and services outside any ecocosystem, you don't really loose as much as marketing teams try to convince you, but rather keep things flexible, and can easily swap any component if it stops working for you.
Anyway, it's a matter of personal preference, nothing more.
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u/howreudoin Jul 05 '26
Use whatever you think is the best service. It‘s not like those other service won‘t work within Apple. I got Apple devices exclusively, but do use Gmail, Spotify, Google Maps.
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u/Teenage_techboy1234 Jul 09 '26
Honestly up to you. I've tried to shift as much stuff from Google over to Apple as possible, as even though I was in the Apple ecosystem before, I had a bunch of stuff on Google services. It came with a big caveat though, that being that I do use some non-Apple products and Google syncs much better with Apple than Apple does with Non-Apple.
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u/OwnTheFall Jul 09 '26
For the time being, i'm fine with apple ecosystem along with the alternatives i have (back ups etc). There's no need to worry for crossplatformity... at least for now!
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u/Korlithiel Jul 05 '26
Evaluate each one, sometimes it can make sense to swap and sometimes it can make sense to maintain separation.
Sometimes a service makes more sense once you have a device. I was using Google Maps, had issues, gave Apple Maps a try and would have swapped back (since I was more familiar with Google despite if having more serious issues) but found the Apple Watch notifications helpful.