Dealing with multiple tech ecosystems

For years now I have struggled with which ecosystem to completely live in. I have managed to exist in a hybrid setup of sorts. As my main computer I use an iMac, along with an iPhone and an iPad. I also use all their associated functionality such as notes, iTunes and a few other apps.

I do not use the apple ecosystem for email. I have always stuck around with Gmail as my email provider, mostly out of habit and comfort. I’ve considered but have been reluctant to move to iCloud or Outlook for mail. I have considered this because they are not ecosystem dependent, but neither is Gmail. You can use the browser to access any of those platforms.

I do feel that lately Apple has been a little less reliable than it was in the past. I’ve been having trouble with my notes synching and I’ve even had a few playlists disappear from my phone and iTunes. This is horrible for a zumba instructor! We need our playlists!

You’ll remember that for a while I got fed up with apple and jumped ship to android. But I did come back to the iPhone after only a few months. As unstable as apple feels these days, the android phone was way worse then.

Given that both ecosystems have been troublesome in some form, I’m a little reluctant to commit entirely to either platform. Though I still think apple is more solid overall. I have also considered the flexibility of going to a third party platform that doesn’t marry you to either ecosystem.

I’ve been looking around for a notes platform and I do find it terribly annoying how hard it is to export data from apple. Every time I want to back anything up it is such a pain. I was looking to back up my notes and you simply can’t just export them all. There are things you can do, but you can’t get everything. It’s really annoying.

So the question then becomes, do you give in entirely to your google or apple overlords, or do you use a platform like evernote, obsidion or notion? And that’s just when it comes to notes. What about contacts, calendar, email, file storage and so on.

Even as a guy who provides tech support for a living, I find this very difficult to reconcile. I think that overall, google makes it a little easier to move your data around but apple is a bit more stable. Apple really tries to lock you in to there platform, but google is buggier. You just can’t win!

Do you have any thoughts or advice on this one?