7 Ways To Break Out of the Apple Ecosystem

Just because you use a Mac, iPhone or iPad doesn't mean you need to use Apple's services. You can use other email services, browsers, cloud services, streaming music, photo libraries and more.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to breakout of the Apple Ecosystem while still using your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
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So I've often heard it said that Apple is like a walled garden. As you start using Apple products you're stuck inside using all of the different Apple services. But, in fact Apple's actually really good at letting you use just about any service you want for anything. You don't have to use Apple's stuff just because you use Apple's hardware. 
For instance a lot of people think that once you've moved to Apple products you need to use Pages, Numbers, and Keynote and you can no longer access Microsoft's Office product like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. But that is just not true! Microsoft had always made versions of these apps for Mac. You can actually get them right in the App Store on your Mac. You can just download all of these versions here. You'll need a subscription on Microsoft to use them though. But you actually can buy that not just as a subscription but you can also buy a stand-alone version of the office products as well if you really want that. Although for personal use a subscription is probably the way to go because you can use those App Store versions of the apps and it ends up being cheaper if you're assuming that there are major updates to the software every two years or so. 
That's not the only setup office applications you can use. There are many more. Some available in the App Store and others available from the web. For instance LibreOffice is a very popular cross-platform office suite that you can use and can even open and save out Microsoft formatted documents. In addition, a lot of people skip having apps for this at all and use Goggle Docs, a website that Goggle provides for free that you can use as a word processor, spreadsheets, forms, all sorts of different things. I know using Goggle Docs is very popular especially for students. 
Now I"m a huge fan of the Photos App on the Mac. I've done tons of tutorials on it and I think that people then don't use it today are still thinking of how Photos was maybe many years ago before it added a lot of the powerful features it has now. But, if you really want to use some other ecosystem besides Apple's Photos App and iCloud Photos Library you certainly can. As a matter of fact you can get Adobe Lightroom, a popular choice, right from the App Store. Then you can get a subscription for that from Adobe. You can also use lots of different online photo storing services. Like, for instance, Goggle Photos. 
Now as far a email is concerned you don't have to use iCloud just because you're using an Apple product and the Apple Mail app. In fact if you just go to Mail, Settings, and then Accounts you see that you can add a new account and have built-in quick ways to add Microsoft Exchange accounts, Goggle accounts also known as gmail, Yahoo aol or you can choose another mail account and here's where you can add an account from just about anything. Your school, your company, your ISP, any standard email account will work with the Mail App. You can also have more than one account here so you can still use your iCloud account for somethings, even if your main account is with your school or company. In addition you don't even have to use the Apple Mail App. You can get different Mail clients both on the Mac and in iOS and iPad OS. For instance, the Spark Mail App is a really popular one. One that you can download online is Thunderbird. Thunderbird has been around for a long time and it's a pretty comprehensive email app. You can also, of course, just use web-based interfaces for doing email. A lot of people just use Goggle's gmail website for checking their gmail and never use an email client at all. 
Note that some of these services are for more than just mail. For instance in System Settings if I go to Internet Accounts I can see that I've got some demo Goggle Accounts here. If I go into them I can see that Goggle offers not just Mail but Contacts, Calendars, and Notes. These will work with these apps on your Mac directly. Now they may not have as many features. For instance, in Notes you're not going to get a lot of the new iCloud stuff. But you can still use Notes and store basic text notes that are actually put in Goggle's ecosystem, not Apple's. A lot of other email services also offer these.
Now you also don't have to stick with the Safari browser on your Apple products. Safari is great because it syncs up things like Bookmarks between all your devices. But so other browsers as well. So, for instance, you can get Goggle's Chrome Browser and you can use your Goggle Account to sync things up. Firefox is another popular browser and that also has a service to sync you bookmarks between different devices. A newer browser you can get for your Mac that a lot of people also like is Microsoft Edge. So that would, of course, work with the Microsoft ecosystem. 
Now one of the things that is built into macOS, iOS, and iPad OS is the iCloud Keychain allowing you to store your passwords, create unique strong passwords for different websites. But you can certainly use another password manager. A lot of those have been around a lot longer than Apple's own Password Manager. For instance, 1Password has been around for a longtime and the great thing about it and other password managers is they work cross platform. So if you do happen to have a non-Apple device it is just as easy to install this app on all your devices and sync your passwords between them. Another popular one would be bitwarden and you can get apps for 1Password and bitwarden that work across all your devices. 
Let's talk about Cloud Services, particularly storing your files in a Cloud Service like iCloud Drive. You don't have to use iCloud Drive just because you're using a Mac, iPhone, or iPad. You can use lots of third party apps. For instance, Dropbox has been around for a longtime and you can certainly use Dropbox, not just on the web but also by installing apps on your devices and then you automatically have access to those files, in folders, just like you would in iCloud Drive. As a matter of fact the Files App on the iPhone and the iPad work with Dropbox and other Cloud Services so you can see those services listed there just as easily as you see iCloud Drive. 
Another popular one, of course, is Goggle Drive. That works really well if you're already using the Goggle ecosystem. 
That's not all. You can use alternative apps for just about anything on your Mac. For instance, if you don't like the Podcast App on your Mac, or your iPhone, or iPad, you can find other podcast apps on all of those devices, usually in the Mac App Store. You can subscribe to your podcast through those. The same is true with Music Apps. There are plenty of media handling apps and music players and if you use streaming music you can certainly get apps like Spotify and use that service instead. There is also, of course, YouTube Music and Amazon Music. So there are a ton of different ways to stream music. You don't have to stick with Apple Service. 
You don't necessarily need to stick with Siri as your digital assistant either, although Siri works great across all of the Apple platforms. On the iPhone and iPad in particular you can get apps for Goggle Assistant and for Amazon Alexa and access those as well. So that is really handy if you've got devices around your house for those or devices that respond to those systems, you can use those apps on your iPhone and control them or to do things like add reminders and events and other tasks in those different ecosystems. 
So while I personally prefer using the Apple Apps for just about everything we talked about it is great to know that you have alternatives just about every way. So if you have a lot of devices and only some of them are Apple devices then using some of these other ecosystems may make sense or you may just have historically used things like Goggle Drive, Microsoft Office, and so on and just want to stick with those. Or maybe your coworkers use those and you really want to stick with those for compatibility. 
Hope you found this useful particularly if you're thinking to switch to the Mac and you had questions about all of this. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 13 Responses to “7 Ways To Break Out of the Apple Ecosystem”

Joel D Canfield

6 months ago

I use lots of alternatives, but one I haven't found a good substitute for is Music for playing local music files. I don't use streaming services. Music is far better than it was years ago but still gets frustrating (guess I should take notes and ask more specific questions, eh?) Are you aware of any especially simple music apps that play nice with Apple?

Dana

@Joel- Music works fine and is included with Mac OS. JR River Median Center (now v31) does work well, and has a lot of options. Not free, though.
A more general question about web browsers. Having switched to a Android phone, I'm now using Chrome. It does not appear there is a Safari available, and I have no interest in Edge.

Gary Rosenzweig

Joel: I don't use them, as I love the Apple Music streaming service. But I have heard people mention IINA and VLC a lot.

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

jun

Thanks a lot Gary! Just my 2 cents: I also prefer Apple apps just about anything mentioned here EXCEPT ms-office. I wish I could have used Pages/Numbers/Keynote(which I do for personal use ofcourse) for everything. But just one example - I got a .docx to fill in - I couldn't do that even after trying in numerous ways(of course trying with libreoffice - I have used this even 10 years ago and google docs etc.), everytime somethng formatting/font/color scheme/border etc. was off. finlly, I gave up!

Henning

@Joel: As a Mastering Engineer i can highly recommend Colibri as the Music App to go to. It's not expensive, has a ton of features and sounds by far the best of all Mac Apps, i used so far. Plus the Developer reacts to all Customercomments rather quick.
Regards
Henning

Lori

Noticed that you mention 1password which I have been using but would sure like to see a video for that app. Setting up...continued use...authentication etc. Thanks

Eric

5 months ago

I switched from 1Password a couple of years ago when it changed to a subscription model. Minimalist Password Manager (available on the App Store) is worth considering. The developer website is at https://minimalistpassword.com

Peter

I want to go the other way, that is, find a Mac alternative for the excellent Irfanview photo handling app, which is only available for Windows machines. I've tried using Wine etc, to run Irfanview on my Macs, but the experience is less than satisfactory.

John

I subscribe to Apple iMatch which stores all my music in iCloud - not just iTunes music. Is there an alternative and less-costly way to secure my music library? Thanks

Peter: Just glancing at the web page for that reminds me of Graphic Converter. Look at that. But also look at Pixelmator Pro too.

John: Do you mean iTunes Match? Isn't that still $25 per year? I don't think you'll find anything cheaper than that, if there even is anything. Certainly not for iCloud since there would just be one solution provided by Apple in their own app. Well, the other solution is Apple Music, but if you think $25/year is expensive then $10/month is probably not an option for you.

Dean Alan Rowell

I’m looking forward to try this out. I have been using MS 365 and others. Will comment after trying. Thank you.

7 Ways To Break Out of the Apple Ecosystem

Comments: 13 Responses to “7 Ways To Break Out of the Apple Ecosystem”

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