03-04-2023, 03:31 PM
Yes, you are tied into the Google ecosystem with Android, but you can limit its reach. I already had a gmail account, but I don't use it as a primary email. I installed K9 for email, which accessed my various other mailboxes with no issues. For web browsing I used Firefox.
It would be a similar story with Apple - you have to create an iCloud account and submit to their ways of working to some extent. I was initially concerned about having to do this, but found that it's quite well thought out - upgrading devices is trivial because everything automatically carries across, and the family sharing options are very good. Parental controls and tracking, for example, have been extremely useful. I daresay there are similar things for modern Android, but recent reviews I've read suggest that you still need to install various 3rd-party apps to get similar functionality.
Safari, the built in web browser is fine. Firefox is available for iOS, but it uses the same rendering engine as Safari, so I haven't bothered trying it. Safari does a neat thing, where if I pick up the iPad I can see the tabs I've got open on the phone (and vice-versa). Useful for when you get fed up with trying to browse the web on a tiny screen.
Ultimately, you have to decide who to trust with your data, and to what extent. Who is most trustworthy out of Apple, Google or Microsoft? Or Samsung or Sony? Or Netflix or ITV or the BBC? Impossible to say - we only have the marketing departments of each, plus reports in the media to go on. I can see that becoming a contentious subject, so better not got too far down that path, but suffice to say, we each have to do our own risk assessment before signing up to anything. Personally, I'm uncomfortable when people put their real dates of birth on the forum, because I'd rather not be responsible for real data being out there should we ever get a data breach!
It would be a similar story with Apple - you have to create an iCloud account and submit to their ways of working to some extent. I was initially concerned about having to do this, but found that it's quite well thought out - upgrading devices is trivial because everything automatically carries across, and the family sharing options are very good. Parental controls and tracking, for example, have been extremely useful. I daresay there are similar things for modern Android, but recent reviews I've read suggest that you still need to install various 3rd-party apps to get similar functionality.
Safari, the built in web browser is fine. Firefox is available for iOS, but it uses the same rendering engine as Safari, so I haven't bothered trying it. Safari does a neat thing, where if I pick up the iPad I can see the tabs I've got open on the phone (and vice-versa). Useful for when you get fed up with trying to browse the web on a tiny screen.
Ultimately, you have to decide who to trust with your data, and to what extent. Who is most trustworthy out of Apple, Google or Microsoft? Or Samsung or Sony? Or Netflix or ITV or the BBC? Impossible to say - we only have the marketing departments of each, plus reports in the media to go on. I can see that becoming a contentious subject, so better not got too far down that path, but suffice to say, we each have to do our own risk assessment before signing up to anything. Personally, I'm uncomfortable when people put their real dates of birth on the forum, because I'd rather not be responsible for real data being out there should we ever get a data breach!
