You Gain Seamless Integration (in Most Cases)

When you sign up for the Apple ecosystem, most everything in it works together. The company designs their software with numerous advantages so third party apps can’t really compete with them. Apple reserves a variety of APIs—that’s application programming interfaces, for the uninitiated—just for their apps and, until iOS 7, only allowed their own software to fully run in the background. You just can’t get these features if you go with a third-party solution. Let’s take a look at what you gain with the default apps: Email integrates with everything. When you want to send a photo, apps naturally call up Apple’s default interface. They don’t request Sparrow, Gmail, Evomail, or whatever else you prefer. Even if you use a third-party email app, you still kind of have to configure your accounts in iOS anyway because you’ll have to use it for sharing within apps no matter what. Sticking with it as your default mail app eliminates jumping around. Apple's apps integrate with Siri out of the box. Siri can add notes and reminders to your phone, start navigation, or perform other tasks much faster than you can in most circumstances. Unfortunately, Siri only works with Apple's built-in apps so you have to resort to typing in lots of third-party alternatives. A jailbreak can add enhanced functionality, but only users of iOS 6.1.2 (and earlier) have that opportunity and it still doesn't cover everything. Your settings sync everywhere Apple approves, which works quite well if you buy into their entire ecosystem. If you only have iDevices and Macs, you’re covered. If not, you just don’t get that benefit. Of course, if you just care about syncing your personal data (more on this later) you can access it on any device through iCloud.com. Now, let’s take a look at what you lose: You have to use Safari. If you sync browser data with Safari, you can’t use it on your Android tablet or other device. (Windows users, however, can sync Safari bookmarks and data to Internet Explorer.) The same goes for most browsers, and you certainly make a similar sacrifice by using something like Chrome, but at least Chrome gives you access throughout all platforms and it’s actually a great browser. Safari works really well as a mobile option, but doesn’t provide important features you get with Chrome on the desktop or even on the iPhone. However you approach it, you lose out somehow with Safari. You lose native app support on non-Apple platforms. Other apps, like Notes and Reminders, don’t have native apps on Windows or Android. (You can, however, use iCloud sync to transfer data to native Windows apps.) Of course, Apple provides access to your data on iCloud.com so you can grab it from anywhere if you need to. While not ideal, they don’t lock you out (which makes this a pretty minor disadvantage). Apple Mail doesn’t like Gmail as much as some apps, so you lose out on a bunch of Gmail-specific features and paradigms. I don’t consider this a downside, but die-hard Gmail fans tend to hate the built-in Mail app because it lacks the option to archive or delete (you have to choose one), stars (flags instead), labels (folders instead), priority inbox, and pretty much any other special feature Google offers. I found the advantages often outweighed the problems here. Apple provides a well-integrated experience and it doesn’t require that you sacrifice too much. While I prefer Sparrow as a mail app, I like using one Mail app instead of two. The same goes for the web browser, but even more so due to so many links automatically opening in Safari. Third-party app replacements require a balancing act, and if you just want a phone that handles the basics elegantly it just isn’t worth the trouble.