Which services work better on apple hardware: Microsoft or Google?

[RavenSword]

In my opinion, they can coexist without a problem.

I hear that if you use outlook.com for contacts and calendar you do gain the ability to attach stuff from outlook into you calendar like appointments and stuff. I dont think theres a way to do that if I use google calendars but not gmail.

Honestly, im probaly putting too much thought in this. even if I did use outlook.com for everything and other microsoft services and end up not liking it, its not like I cant go back to google. While I do use ios devices, I prefer a desktop PC I think for reasons like PC games and i am just used to how it works. so i think i am always going to have access to a Windows Device even if its not my mobile OS of choice.as far as laptops go, I dunno. Macs are obviously very good laptops, but I also think the surface Pro 3 looks cool. and I assume if I did go with surface pro 3 for a laptop, i could continue using ios just fine for phone and tablet. Hopefully apple continues to let their devices work well with PCs.

 

[fb2]

do you use mac or PC mainly?

I'm using a MacBook Pro with 8GB ram, so running windows with the application "parallels desktop" simultaneously is no problem.

Basically Mac offers lot more for me and all MS applications like OneNote and office for Mac offer all basic functions you need, but the windows versions are always way better, so in my case I have all good stuff of both worlds. So you can use everything on Mac and I you need some more functionality you can turn on windows and use the advanced features.

I also have Microsoft Office 365 University, so for about 60? I have all Microsoft office software for 4 years on all my devices, on my Mac and also on windows. Furthermore you get 20GB more onedrive storage, skype free minutes and lot more. In my case I just paid 60?/4years= 15?/year and broken down it's just 15?/12 month = 1,25?/month for all the awesome functionality and service of Microsoft sir just an coffee a month

I personally don't use Contacts or calendar from Google or Microsoft, I stick to apple because it's very easy, fast and sync directly without any setup to all my devices and my main operating system (Mac). Also you have access to all your stuff online at iCloud.com

I think Microsoft's OneDrive is better and faster than Google Drive, but I mainly use Dropbox, where I have more than 40GB (because of referrals and other offers). Dropbox is widely use in a lot of applications as a backup option or to sync settings etc. between devices. With iOS 8 and Yosemite iCloud drive will be released, I think a lot of people (and also I) will use that because it's more interested in the Mac and iOS environment.

 

[fb2]

I hear that if you use outlook.com for contacts and calendar you do gain the ability to attach stuff from outlook into you calendar like appointments and stuff. I dont think theres a way to do that if I use google calendars but not gmail.

Honestly, im probaly putting too much thought in this. even if I did use outlook.com for everything and other microsoft services and end up not liking it, its not like I cant go back to google. While I do use ios devices, I prefer a desktop PC I think for reasons like PC games and i am just used to how it works. so i think i am always going to have access to a Windows Device even if its not my mobile OS of choice.as far as laptops go, I dunno. Macs are obviously very good laptops, but I also think the surface Pro 3 looks cool. and I assume if I did go with surface pro 3 for a laptop, i could continue using ios just fine for phone and tablet. Hopefully apple continues to let their devices work well with PCs.

I also think the Surface 3 is the first real replacement for a PC. And it has some really cool killer features I waited for. Maybe if they released it 3 years ago I have chosen that and not a MacBook

And they can live all together without problems, you just have to setup everything once and then everything works.

 

[RavenSword]

I'm using a MacBook Pro with 8GB ram, so running windows with the application "parallels desktop" simultaneously is no problem.

Basically Mac offers lot more for me and all MS applications like OneNote and office for Mac offer all basic functions you need, but the windows versions are always way better, so in my case I have all good stuff of both worlds. So you can use everything on Mac and I you need some more functionality you can turn on windows and use the advanced features.

I also have Microsoft Office 365 University, so for about 60€ I have all Microsoft office software for 4 years on all my devices, on my Mac and also on windows. Furthermore you get 20GB more onedrive storage, skype free minutes and lot more. In my case I just paid 60€/4years= 15€/year and broken down it's just 15€/12 month = 1,25€/month for all the awesome functionality and service of Microsoft sir just an coffee a month

I personally don't use Contacts or calendar from Google or Microsoft, I stick to apple because it's very easy, fast and sync directly without any setup to all my devices and my main operating system (Mac). Also you have access to all your stuff online at iCloud.com

I think Microsoft's OneDrive is better and faster than Google Drive, but I mainly use Dropbox, where I have more than 40GB (because of referrals and other offers). Dropbox is widely use in a lot of applications as a backup option or to sync settings etc. between devices. With iOS 8 and Yosemite iCloud drive will be released, I think a lot of people (and also I) will use that because it's more interested in the Mac and iOS environment.

well, now you get 1TB of onedrive storage with office 365

 

[RavenSword]

I also think the Surface 3 is the first real replacement for a PC. And it has some really cool killer features I waited for. Maybe if they released it 3 years ago I have chosen that and not a MacBook

And they can live all together without problems, you just have to setup everything once and then everything works.

yeah, I forgot I could do parallels to have windows as well. The only complaint I may have with surface is that its kinda in a weird middle ground. its not as good as a dedicated laptop, not as good as a ipad. so its kinda of a weird compromise thing. If I did get it, I may only use it for laptops needs, in which case a macbook would probaly be better, no?

 

[fb2]

well, now you get 1TB of onedrive storage with office 365

Really? Awesome

yeah, I forgot I could do parallels to have windows as well. The only complaint I may have with surface is that its kinda in a weird middle ground. its not as good as a dedicated laptop, not as good as a ipad. so its kinda of a weird compromise thing. If I did get it, I may only use it for laptops needs, in which case a macbook would probaly be better, no?

To be honest, exactly that is the reason why I chose a MacBook Pro 13" 3 years ago. It's very powerful in lot if aspects but still user friendly. But drawbacks are it's big, heavy (about 2kg) and I don't need all its power.

That's why I got an iPad mini retina, which is also really cool, but it's not a PC. I can "consume" with it but I can't "produce" stuff right. For example I use it for reading books, reading Mangas, watching movies, videos and Animes, chatting, for studying (all lecture notes/slides, PowerPoint presentations, Ebooks etc.), using it as my phone but with a bigger screen for things I also can do on my phone like searching for stuff, checking news, Facebook and other stuff.

Having a surface would allow you that all, too. But it's bigger, heavier and you don't need all its features and options on the go mostly (that's what I think). For example you don't want to do some real-time simulations of electronic systems with engineering tools on the go or edit high resolution picture of a photo-shoot with Adobe Photoshop

And when you're at home you maybe need some more power! For example I don't like multitasking much while working/studying with my laptop, but sometimes you just need many applications at the same time, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, browser, dictionary, Visio (which has to run in parallels desktop), file explorer like Path finder, visual studio, calendar, Mail and lot more. And then having 8 GB Ram and a laptop with high specs is better than a "weird compromise thing"

My recommendation is; create a table with pros and cons and things which you need and things which were nice-2-have. Just write down really everything which flies through your head, do some research what tablets/laptops like surface/MacBook/ultra books etc. can/can't do. After that rate your list with stuff which is important and less important and you'll definitely get a clear answer of the question what you really need and should choose.

 

[Ledsteplin]

I have a bone to pick with Microsoft and their OneDrive on iPhone. They are way too invasive. They look at your photos and if you have anything that remotely violates their TOS, your account gets suspended. What I have on my camera roll is my business. But Microsoft wants to make it their business. Nope! Deleted the app and the Outlook email account. There was nothing on my camera roll that was bad. I don't even know what they were talking about. I can do without OneDrive and Outlook.


Sent from from my ancient but trustworthy iPhone 5

 

[Speedygi]

I have a bone to pick with Microsoft and their OneDrive on iPhone. They are way too invasive. They look at your photos and if you have anything that remotely violates their TOS, your account gets suspended. What I have on my camera roll is my business. But Microsoft wants to make it their business. Nope! Deleted the app and the Outlook email account. There was nothing on my camera roll that was bad. I don't even know what they were talking about. I can do without OneDrive and Outlook.


Sent from from my ancient but trustworthy iPhone 5

A dozen other apps in the app store deals with the Camera roll...

 

[RavenSword]

So, I have my gmail being forward to outlook now. I'm gonna try that a bit to see how I like it. As far as bing goes, I honestly don't really mind it. I like there rewards program, seems cool . I'm unsure how accurate there search results are compared to google, I'll have to see .

I like that iOS gets access to pretty much everyone's services. Although I admit using my iphone as sort of a Microsoft phone (using bing, onedrive , outlook, skype , onenote , and contacts and calendar) feels a bit weird

 

[rdubmu]

Also in settings on outlook.com and you set up your email to be sent from gmail using a setting called from device


Sent from my iPhone using iMore Forums

 

[Amamba]

Both services sync fairly well to Apple, so you need to consider the pros and cons of each as far as usability is concerned.

Also, there's absolutely no reason to only stick with one provider for everything. Sometimes integrating services from two different ones works better.

Here's my experience, however biased it may be:

Email - either Gmail or Hotmail are fine, and yahoo syncs fine too.

Calendar - I find Google calendar to be superior. It loads faster in browser, it has a search ability (something MS for whatever mysterious reason decided to omit), it has - in my experience - much more robust sync engine (MS seems to still be using some version of ActiveSync that is prone to getting out of whack every now and then). Also, more great 3rd party calendar apps like Pocket Informant or Calengoo work directly with GCal but rely on Apple calendar for Outlook.com sync (losing some functionality in process).

Tasks - I don't use either service but instead use Toodledo which is far superior to both, even in free version. I imported Toodledo feed into Google calendar as a subscribed cal, which worked out very nicely. I am also syncing it to Pocket Informant on iPad. If I had to choose between MS and Google I'd go with Google Tasks, because they show in browser version of calendar on due date, again a very basic feature that MS stupidly omitted.

Contacts - again, Google. MS has problems syncing contact photos.

Office - for a quick basic spreadsheet I use Google docs, for more involved stuff Office Suite Pro which I also use on my Android phone. It works well with MS Office docs, and is reasonably fast. And way cheaper than Office 365. Plus, it seamlessly integrates with Dropbox and Google Drive.

Cloud storage - while I have free accounts with all major providers, if I only had to use one, I'd go with Dropbox. Unlike Onedrive, it allows you to specify files to be accessible offline. And unlike Google Drive, it doesn't try to get you to convert the office files to Google Docs format. Plus, the syncing is fast and reliable. Onedrive is slower. As to the privacy issues - MS employees are known to be snooping around users' private files on Onedrive for "prohibited" content like nudity, so I don't think either MS or Google are better in that respect. If I don't want my data to be accessed by someone, I zip it inside an encrypted file. This way, only NSA can see it

With this setup, I am completely hardware independent and can switch to a different tablet or phone tomorrow without losing any functionality. Also, it is much less complicated than it sounds, as all these services integrate very well into all three major OS I'm using (Windows, iOS and Android).

 

[RavenSword]

Both services sync fairly well to Apple, so you need to consider the pros and cons of each as far as usability is concerned.

Also, there's absolutely no reason to only stick with one provider for everything. Sometimes integrating services from two different ones works better.

Here's my experience, however biased it may be:

Email - either Gmail or Hotmail are fine, and yahoo syncs fine too.

Calendar - I find Google calendar to be superior. It loads faster in browser, it has a search ability (something MS for whatever mysterious reason decided to omit), it has - in my experience - much more robust sync engine (MS seems to still be using some version of ActiveSync that is prone to getting out of whack every now and then). Also, more great 3rd party calendar apps like Pocket Informant or Calengoo work directly with GCal but rely on Apple calendar for Outlook.com sync (losing some functionality in process).

Tasks - I don't use either service but instead use Toodledo which is far superior to both, even in free version. I imported Toodledo feed into Google calendar as a subscribed cal, which worked out very nicely. I am also syncing it to Pocket Informant on iPad. If I had to choose between MS and Google I'd go with Google Tasks, because they show in browser version of calendar on due date, again a very basic feature that MS stupidly omitted.

Contacts - again, Google. MS has problems syncing contact photos.

Office - for a quick basic spreadsheet I use Google docs, for more involved stuff Office Suite Pro which I also use on my Android phone. It works well with MS Office docs, and is reasonably fast. And way cheaper than Office 365. Plus, it seamlessly integrates with Dropbox and Google Drive.

Cloud storage - while I have free accounts with all major providers, if I only had to use one, I'd go with Dropbox. Unlike Onedrive, it allows you to specify files to be accessible offline. And unlike Google Drive, it doesn't try to get you to convert the office files to Google Docs format. Plus, the syncing is fast and reliable. Onedrive is slower. As to the privacy issues - MS employees are known to be snooping around users' private files on Onedrive for "prohibited" content like nudity, so I don't think either MS or Google are better in that respect. If I don't want my data to be accessed by someone, I zip it inside an encrypted file. This way, only NSA can see it

With this setup, I am completely hardware independent and can switch to a different tablet or phone tomorrow without losing any functionality. Also, it is much less complicated than it sounds, as all these services integrate very well into all three major OS I'm using (Windows, iOS and Android).

The thing I like about onedrive is I like the UI and I like there pricing and how they organize things. Every other service seem to not group or organize photos and files automatically. .I like that there's a photo and a document section. I also have a extra 100 gbs with them till March through a bing rewards thing.

Yeah, it's probably best to mix and match, but I heard that could cause complications with things working together. Like, outlook wouldn't work as well with google calendar and contact sync than it would with gmail and etc. also how gmail can now store documents into google drive and the same can be done with outlook and one drive, but it wouldn't work if I switched those around.

As far as email goes, I like outlooks interface more and strangely I like that it doesn't have the complexity of gmail. I just want email with some filtering is all. However, I think maybe gmail holds more cache than outlook.com because people are still bitter about Hotmail.

As far as MS snooping through one drive, I think they only look for illegal stuff, which everyone else probably does as well. I don't care too much because I don't store anything bad. Google I'm unsure of how private my stuff is outside of if you store incriminating things. Slot of people think of google as some kind of boogeyman. I mean, they haven't done any wrong yet, have they ?

 

[zerog46]

A dozen other apps in the app store deals with the Camera roll...

It's an issue that happen to some people MS said. They don't look at your pics.

 

[RavenSword]

So, I think I'm probably going to go about it like this: for email, web search, and storage and docs, I'm going to use google. From what I can tell google integrates better on iOS and Mac.

For note taking and photo storage, I'm probably going one note and onedrive. I like the simplicity of one note and I like how much storage onedrive gives you and how they price their storage plans. Also I like how they organize everything. I might use google drive for photos. I'm unsure.

If I ever. We'd to do business file storage or collaboration, I'll probably use box.net.

I still want to use Dropbox. Either for additional photo back up or app data sync. I just really wished they would lower their prices or increase their free storage considering what there competition is doing.

 

[RavenSword]

I'd really just like some thing that is platform agnostic, but it seems like more and more services are being tied to their specific operating systems. Of course this has always been true with apple, but now it seems that way with Microsoft. And if I did go with Microsoft services, I'd hope theud at least do well on a Mac.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I keep going on and on about this. But I'm just really trying not to get locked to any platform or plan this out as best I can for now and the future.

 

[Ledsteplin]

A dozen other apps in the app store deals with the Camera roll...

Yep. I got an email the next day from a nice lady who said my account was suspended for irregular activity. ? LOL. She said I was good to go. I wish I knew what i did that was seen as irregular.

 

[RavenSword]

I wonder how far MS is going to go with having their apps work on different operating systems and if they make them have feature or use parity as it does on windows and on Mac. They need to get office 2914 out soon , though .

Google, as far as I know, has there stuff working exactly the same wether it's on windows or Mac.

 

[zerog46]

I just upgraded to the office 365 for $99 a year. Is good for 5 PC's and tablets and everyone gets there own 1 TB of storage. Not bad in my opinion.

 

[RavenSword]

I just upgraded to the office 365 for $99 a year. Is good for 5 PC's and tablets and everyone gets there own 1 TB of storage. Not bad in my opinion.

Yeah, it's a pretty great deal. 1TB is a insane amount of data.

 

[zerog46]

I also love the way there cloud works on the net. It's just drop and drag into whatever folder you want to move something into.