G+_Michael O'Hara Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Ok, Gang - Just to close the book on this discussion about designing an ecosystem that's friendly to iOS AND Chromebooks, and that does not require any OSX or Windows machines, here's the app and cloud drive combination ( see photo ) that has successfully emerged : EMAIL: Using GMail for all email handling. In order to not lose years of saved mail in Apple Mail, and to avoid the confusion to others of changing from my mac.com email address, Apple Mail stays in place. All new incoming mail to my mac.com address is set to automatically forward to my GMail account. GMail set to track original incoming address (whether mac.com vs. gmail.com and to use the corresponding email account to reply. Automatic backups of Gmail go to GDrive, and Spanning.com backs GDrive to AWS. Moved the Apple Mail icon off the main home page to avoid confusion. After using both, I find the GMail UI FAR superior to Apple Mail. MUSIC: Now have all my 7,200 tracks copied from iTunes Match into Google Music - with Google Music Player on each iOS device and, of course, on the Chromebook via the Google Play web UI. I moved the Apple Music icon off the home page to avoid confusion. I'll be canceling iTunes Match upon it's expiration. I can buy new music from Google Play or copy in & add ripped tracks from the Chromebook's Play Web UI. All music gets a backup in GDrive, which is then backed up by Spanning.com to AWS. After using both, I am MUCH happier with the Google Play UI than iOS iTunes Music app. PHOTOS: I uploaded all my current 1,200 pix to Google+ Photos (as private) and also created a Yahoo Flickr account (also private) with a copy of all these pix. Google+ Photos AND also Flickr will each automatically receive all photos taken from now on using iOS devices. Old photos will be scanned and added to both libraries via their Web UIs on the Chromebook. I particularly like the photo editing and Web UI of Flickr , which will probably be my primary photo app. DOCUMENTS ( files, spreadsheets, presentations , etc.): Plan to use Office Web Apps via SkyDrive.com to create new docs, edit existing and otherwise maintain. Have observed occasional conversion and formatting issues trying to read older docs into Goggle Docs and also Apple iWork for iCloud. OWA seems bulletproof and presents a familiar UI . I've relocated the icons for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote off the home page, to avoid confusion and future document compatability issues. Will now create and use all docs in SkyDrive with OWA, and save based on specific projects to SkyDrive, DropBox or Box .com. Am using StorageMadeEasy.com to set up syncing between these various cloud drives and GDrive. Spanning.com backs up to AWS. There you have it! The attached photo shows how my iOS home screen now looks across all devices. I am very happy with my new, 100% cloud-based, automatically synced and backed up, mobile Chromebook/iOS ecosystem. Hope this helps a few folks!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jay Morris Huddleston Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 But I honestly can't figure out gmail. Where is my contacts folder? What are all these folders 'personal' 'important' 'social' etc that I DID NOT CREATE and where my mail is sorted arbitrarily? I cannot find my contacts meanwhile as is so easy on yahoo and msn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Fred Evans Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 That if found app is a good idea... But then all the more reason to ransom devices. Never mind, bad idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Chris Zedlitz Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Should switch to android since you use primarily google services. My home screen looked like that before I switched to android. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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