should you join the apple ecosystem?
if you’re smart about life, the answer is simple.
I’m impatient. So when I first learned that the new iPhone 12 was coming in a smaller model reminiscent of the holy iPhone 5 design, I prepared my return to iOS with the iPhone SE from 2 years of an Android device. Here are some things I’ve learned:
blue bubble club
It’s a real club. Messages travel faster. We live in a world where information is shared faster than we’d like to admit. And sometimes, I need to keep up. With recent changes in social-distancing guidelines and typhoons, staying up to date is tuned with survival in terms of health and awareness.
Not to mention, Koreans are really good at being last minute. I’ve learned it’s important not to look at it as a good or bad thing, but it’s a learning lesson in how to further think on my toes when dates shift or plans change. When things change, I want to be seconds faster, I want them spanned on all my devices so that wherever I am, I’m able to at least land on my feet when it comes to the actual event.
Also, because I travel often, it’s much easier for a message to receive and send messages outside of SMS or needing to launch a third party app to communicate with someone. To make life easy, Apple understands that communication exists relies on Messages.
airdrop
Plain and simple, Airdrop has saved me when it comes to moving documents from device to device. Needing them shared and sent in an instant is godsend. Gone are the days of a USB as everything is saved to the cloud. I don’t have to worry about data-wipe scares or needing to go up and down elevators to have documents signed and printed.
ecosystem
Apple keeps you. In design language and longevity, my MacBook, iPad and iPhone are able to exist within its own environment. The way information syncs across all devices and the way my Airpods connect from device to device in seconds allows much comfort in work and pleasure.
The closest tech hub that hits close to him with such an ecosystem is Google. It has its own version of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel without a price tag unlike, cough cough, Microsoft. But all of this is an entirely different article.
Bottom line, Apple is able to create a living, breathing world within its units where technology has seamlessly integrated itself within our lifestyles.
app fluidity
Coming from Android, most apps look and feel much cleaner in iOS. You don’t know how many times apps have frozen or closed out on me on my Android device, hiccups in quality. Instagram. Twitter. Banking apps and issues with in-device downloads.
For example, Instagram functions on Apple versus Android are tremendously different. On Stories, you can zoom in with the swift lift of your thumb up across the screen. You can post multiple pictures on your story by a simple copy and paste from your photostream. Picture and video quality aren’t lost. On Android, none of these things exist, or they attempt to do so through third-party apps. Apple understands that you don’t need an outlet because they have perfected their platform.
To the average Joe, these are all small things. But they add up. And when they do, we lose much more patience we’re equipped with in times like these.
facetime as home
Lastly, Facetime feels like home. To be able to think of a friend and see them, talk to them accessed through the last message they sent brings me closer to them in distance. I don’t have to sift through a third-party app to be able to reach them. Finger swipes away is distance, too. Keep that in mind.
Living abroad with America on fire has shown me the importance, more than ever, of time. How much of it is left, how much of it is needed to convey a sense of home when I miss them, when I need them the most in times where I feel so alone. A broken country. On fire. A pandemic that doesn’t feel close to an end.
