I don't buy DRMed media so could transfer my music elsewhere.
Vesper simplenote nvalt Offline#
I use iCloud only with some apps that support it and the photostream functionality but I have all my photos offline too.
Vesper simplenote nvalt full#
Yes the services are only available on their hardware but hardware choice is far from the biggest issue with this sort of freedom, ability to leave the supplier entirely is the power I want and precisely because they offer less (or at least I use less) than the full Google ecosystem I have a lower barrier to exit. If I changed device I would lose apps, including purchased ones but little else. I don't feel more locked in to iOS than I would be to Android. I suppose it's obvious why it happens - they're a hardware company, and they grew up in a pre-networked world - but I think misunderstanding this is one key reason they're seen as "bad at services" in comparison to Google, which is instinctively and entirely in "the space between devices".Īs for this app, why would I ever want to be trapped in a single place again? They might as well have made it for an SE/30. They see the world through the device first. Notifications appear on all devices and often have to be dismissed individually on each of them. Me.com tries to keep the sync truth on one of your devices, so conflicts abound. iTunes Match is device-first, so you're forever downloading and deleting tracks to make space on a particular device. Photostream is device-first, so you have to work out what the hell is where and work out what you want to download to which machine. but you can't call anyone with it.Īpple in particular makes this mistake repeatedly. Nowadays, putting the device first over the data (or ignoring other devices entirely, like this app does) is like putting the phone first over the call: beautiful, elegant hardware, refined way to dial, custom typeface for the numbers. Thanks to the web, mobile devices and lots of data, that's changed: Google Apps led the way, but Evernote etc all let you do your work in the space between devices. Work used to happen on a device and then was transferred to other devices, either manually (floppies, email) or later automatically (sync, dropbox). You know the old William Gibson line that cyberspace is the place where telephone conversations happen? Not in the hardware at either end, but in the "space between"? Computing has moved there too.
Thinking that sync is optional is a really weird thing that seems to linger in the Apple world.