How I Benefit from Apple Integration
The benefit of buying into Apple’s ecosystem is the integration. Here’s how this benefits me:
I can AirPlay to my receiver at high quality, noticeably better than Bluetooth. By contrast, Google has neglected Google Cast and fewer speakers are launching with Cast support today than in the past.
I can copy-paste across devices.
I can AirDrop files from one to the other.
From my Mac, I can turn on the iPhone’s hotspot. Once I do, I see cellular and battery indicators.
My Mac can record the screen and optionally microphone on a plugged in iPhone via QuickTime Player.
Apple Photos support for iPhone camera features: it automatically categorises videos, timelapses, slomo, selfies, screenshots, portraits, Live Photos, panoramas and Cinematic videos. Some settings offered by the iPhone camera app can be changed in post by Apple photos: For a portrait, I can change the aperture. For a slomo video, I can change when it transitions from regular speed to slomo and back. For a Live Photo, I can change the effect from long exposure to loop to bounce or disable the Live Photo effect, thus converting it into a regular photo.
My Mac can reinstall iOS on an iDevice, which is a deeper factory reset than can be done on the device1.
Doing a factory reset directly on the iDevice keeps the OS and erases only user data. This doesn’t fit a problem with the OS installation itself.