Switching from the Google to Apple Ecosystem in 2024

My Google Pixel recently failed. After a decade of being a faithful Android user. I have now switched to the Apple Ecosystem.

What caused the switch?

My partner has been fully integrated into the Apple ecosystem for many years. I have seen first hand the benefits of Apple devices.

• Answer a video call on one device and transfer seamlessly to another
• The incredible experience of drawing/taking notes with an iPencil on an iPad
• How slick iMessage/location sharing with Groups and general SMS interactions are
• All the default apps are installed and all state just works when you login into the device
• The insane battery life/compute of the M1 chip
• Airpods seamlessly switch between devices
• Use Fusion 360, and movie editing programs, AND be able to develop software on a Unix like system

All of this slick integration comes at a cost. User Freedom. That idea has kept me on Android for over a decade. But what's changed?

It's is no longer Android vs iOS; but really Google vs Apple. You're a slave one or the other. You just need to pick the overlord you prefer.

I prefer to pay for my hardware/services directly. It aligns incentives, and typically works towards my best interests. Google is in the ads business. Apple is in the hardware business.

One provider is incentivized to track/sell you ads. The other one is to incentivize you to buy nicer/better hardware. I prefer the incentives to buy better hardware.

If I wanted to truly maximize user freedom. I would:

• Run LineageOS on an old Pixel
• Run Ubuntu on an old Thinkpad
• Self-host all cloud services locally on a rack mount server
• Communicate only via Signal/Telegram
• Wireguard into the network from the phone.

All of this is very possible in 2024, but to be frank I don't think it is worth it when using technology as a tool to work with other human beings.

I would spend much of my time tweaking/toying with my maximum user freedom setup, rather than using it as a tool to create and interact with other humans.

I still aim to have "maximum user freedom" hardware/software ready to be ready in the background. But that's the nerd/prepper in me.

For the pragmatic person that uses computers as a tool, and for living life. Apple is the way to go in 2024.

Below is a list of notes that I took when porting from Google to Apple services.

Services comparison

Google Photos-> Apple Photos

Thoughts: Basically feature parity. The intelligence on receiving and downloading photos over iMessage is quite nice. The features I only care about are:

• Geotagging/Map View
• Albums
• Sharing Albums with other people
• Search by Person/Thing
• Autogenerated memory videos

Conversion Path: Easy. As of 2024, if you click the correct buttons in Google Takeout. You can directly transfer photos from Google Photos straight into iCloud. Server to Server. No need to download 50+GB to your hard drive and upload it back up. This includes geotagging! VERY happy about this. A direct benefit from the EU/GDPR pressure on big tech. The album(s) organization didn't persist which is a bummer.

Google Calendar -> Apple Calendar

Thoughts: Apple Calendar can be greatly improved. It is very hard to view events in a weekly or monthly view and add data in a sane manner. Apple Calendar has no streamlined viewing of Reminders,Notes,Calendar on a single pane of glass, even on the apple website.

My daily workflow involves scheduling at the macro goals (Keep), flexible tasks(Tasks), and non movable time events (Google Calendar Events) I can only do this while jumping apps/screens. Complete miss.

Conversion Path: Didn't investigate. I'm sticking with Google Calendars for the foreseeable future.

Google Tasks -> Apple Reminders

Thoughts: I'm sticking with Google Tasks, Apple Reminders is not great. The first view into Reminders on iOS is a waste of time, and I need to click again to actually see my reminders. It is not integrated AT ALL with Apple Calendars.

Tasks and Events in my life are related things that take up my time. There is no way for me to view my time constraints on a single piece of glass for a day/week/month. Terrible.

Conversion Path: Didn't investigate. Sticking with Google Tasks

Google Keep -> Apple Notes

Thoughts: Apples iPencil, drawing logic, math functions, and multimedia input makes Apple Notes a killer app.

Google Keeps saving grace is that it tightly integrates between Calendar,Task,Keep. Making that a killer trio. Google Keep does a great job of showing the macro view of all your notes. Which is REALLY nice when you are scanningfor high level ideas/notes.

Apple Notes forces you to click into each note just to see what the content is. This might be by design to force you to organize your thoughts in a more structured manner.

I'll try to move towards Apple Notes going forward.

Conversion Path: Manually Copy/Paste Each Keep Note into a new Apple Note

Gmail -> Apple Mail

Thoughts: Gmail subjectively has a better interface. But Apple Mail is good enough to get the job done. I'm defaulting to Apple Mail as the UI. But using my Gmail as my email server for personal reasons.

Conversion Path: Just login into your Gmail from the Apple app Exportability out of iCloud: Export via privacy.apple.com request

Google Drive -> iCloud Drive

Thoughts: Same basic features. You can't just "Add files" to iCloud. The file needs to be generated in an Application then "saved" into it.

Conversion Path: High if you use Sheets, and Docs within Google Drive. You would need to export each sheet/doc as xls/doc and import it into Numbers/Pages manually. I haven't done this fully yet.

Google Authenticator -> NULL

Thoughts: Apple doesn't have an auth provider for 2FA codes. Still using Google product.

Google Sheets -> Apple Numbers

Thoughts: Google Sheets is for power users that use code and automations to get things done on the internet. Apple Numbers is for simple use cases that want to present data beautifully. 95% of people will be perfectly fine using Apple Numbers.

Out of all my Google Sheet spreadsheets, only two of them take advantage of App Scripts and internet facing functionality. I'll slowly port over to Numbers for all of my personal spreadsheet needs.

I need to mention again that Apple Numbers is very pretty. The default idea is that the data and graphing need to look good ALL the time. That is enjoyable.

Conversion Path: Save as .xls in Google Sheets and open in Numbers then save as native format. Exportability out of iCloud: You can export a numbers spreadsheet as .xls file

Google Docs-> Apple pages

Thoughts: I sparingly use either apps.. Only to write long form content, such as content for this website.

Conversion path: Export as .doc from Google and import into Apple Pages.

Google Contacts -> Apple Contacts

Thoughts: Apple is actively hostile to non-iCloud contacts. iMessage won't associate phone numbers with names if saved under a Google Account.

Conversion Path: Easy. Google Contact contacts.google.com Export as .vcard -> Import via https://www.icloud.com/contacts/ (opens in a new tab) . Perfect.

Exportability out of iCloud: Good. Select All -> Export via web console as .vcard

Google Password Manager-> iCloud Keychain

Thoughts: There is no way for me to do this without purchasing a Mac computer.(Update: IOS 18 will support the new Apple Passwords app)

Difficulty: Ultra High. I need to buy another $1k of hardware to do this. I'd prefer to wait for my current laptop to fail.

Conversion Path: Using Chrome browser export passwords -> Import via MacOS system menu

Exportability out of iCloud Okay. Requires MacOS to export the passwords.

Google Maps + Location History-> Apple Maps

Thoughts: Apple doesn't really have the concept for granular hour by hour location tracking. It's probably for the better. Viewing some of my data from years ago is legitimately interesting to me. I still prefer Google reviews/storefront data just due to sheer volume. For navigation, they are both the same Difficulty: N/A . Not Possible to transfer location history data into Apple ecosystem Final Choice: I have both. Searching restaurants reviews I use Google Maps, directions I use Apple Maps.

Google Messages -> iMessage

Thoughts: Apple is quite hostile towards Android users. Photos/videos etc are hard to send. Integration with other Apple users is top notch. With the new iOS 18 update that hostility should be reduced with RCS support.

Exportability out of iCloud: None. I don't really care about this. All my SMS messages are very temporary state that doesn't matter.

Google Home -> Apple HomeKit

Thoughts: My smart home automation setup uses Home Assistant as the backend and the native OS smart home integration for actual control. Both Google and Apple’s smart home OE controls within the phone work well.

Apple Cons

• Sometimes Apple abstracts many things into "magic" for you. For instance if you get an email and view it from Apple Mail. You can click on the contact, and it displays your contact but it doesn't say which email address its from(if there are multiple emails)

• There are other instances of "magic", where I'm trying to figure out things that Android would reveal in a "Details" page, but Apple doesn't. I understand why they do this. Apple's philosophy is to build around "What are you trying to do" instead of "Here's how you do it"

• No consistent way to "exit" the app. Google has a concept of clicking/swiping back will always allow you to go back. The iPhone doesn't have any of that. The amount of times it was easier to just kill the application instance instead of exiting there are many. Sometimes I swipe up, swipe back, double tap. Eventually I figured it out.

• I can't find any official internet facing REST APIs to interact with Apple Services. It makes it hard/impossible to write custom automations/add-ons that would make your life easier. Google's nature tends to make APIs available by default. Google is much better in this category

Apple Pros

• Apple's privacy centric design is next level. The amount of tech they built to anonymous your digital signals is great. Google by design cannot do this, since they are in the business of selling ads to you.

• Apple fundamental ethos supports "creation" of content. On the phone, Garageband and iMovie both exist. You can create on the go. I did this recently by quickly editing a Family outing event while relaxing on vacation. It didn't even occur to me that I can "casually" edit videos on my phone. Very useful.

• Apple is VERY individual and family centric. If you add your significant other then many of the Apple apps work in unison. Sharing photos, locations, Hardware information etc. Google tends to do this on an app by app basis. Meaning if you share something in Google Photos. They are a brand new person when sharing on Maps. If you own multiple pieces of Apple hardware, all state transfers/sync automagically. Google does do this too. But I think the real value is having all the apps installed by default on all the Apple hardware. Login once, and it is all just there and works.

• Apple is quite life centric. Apple maps has a feature where it will automatically detect where you parked your car. This is a great product feature. I've done this with dropped points in Google Maps. Same intent, but one requires active effort, and the other one just works behind the scenes.

Summary

Apple does many things right in 2024. But they massively ruined the experience between Apple Calendar/Reminder/Notes. I'm biased towards the Google way.

Google Calendar puts all 3 of those Apple products on a single pane of glass, and it makes sense since they are all things that take up your TIME.

In terms of long term bets, I have faith that Apple will continue to make world class products, and user experiences. I still love Android, but Android truly is Android if it is not contingent on Google Services.