Where's the lock-in exactly? Because I can't think of any besides "this application isn't available for linux/windows/android".

Photos -> Export unmodified originals

Calendar -> Export as iCal

E-Mail -> IMAP anyway (and most people use gmail anyway)

iTunes -> Stuff you bought is .aac without DRM. Music subscription can be cancelled every month

Personally I'm mostly using google services, some of them in parallel to Apple's (i. e. Photos, Cloud Storage) and some exclusively (Gmail, Calendar). I could switch any day. But I use computers professionally and lack the time to debug kernels to get audio or sleep or networking to work. And I lack the tastelessness to spend the majority of my working hours with a tool made from cheap plastic.

I apologize, I didn't mean to dis your choice in devices. I promised myself I wouldn't go at it with the Kook-Aid drinkers anymore. It's just seeing Jobs set 'locking users in' as part of the agenda makes me upset for Apple users, it obviously never affected me.

You can be as condescending as you want, I'm still curious to hear an example.

In what way do they make it difficult? Leaving their ecosystem means you're giving up the hardware/software you've paid money for, so the only real question is data, right? I'm struggling to come up with ways in which Apple makes it hard to export your data. The best I can think of is you can't export your iMessages, and any TV/Movies you've purchased on the iTunes Store aren't portable outside of Apple's ecosystem since they're DRM'd (which is not a ploy by Apple to lock you in, but rather a requirement imposed by the content producer), though if you're switching to Windows you can still use iTunes there if you want. Everything else I can think of has at least some way to export it, e.g. Pages/Numbers/Keynote can all be exported into alternative formats, Contacts and Calendars can be exported, etc.

What else is there besides your data, and what you have invested in media or applications. I imagine it's gotten better than it used to be. But does iPhone even have a built-in file explorer yet, or do you still have to download one to really view your content? I haven't had one in a long time, so I could be off on this. But ask yourself why they didn't. Yes you can sync up to Windows now, and it's less buggy, but you still have to go through their iTunes gateway so they can control whats going on. It's all possible, just like deactivating Facebook is possible. But they only give as much control as people have demanded, and it definitely was a bitch at one time. And now we know that it was by design, hence this email.

And believe me, it irks me that every platform now expects me to buy the same Beatles album over and over again.

> And believe me, it irks me that every platform now expects me to buy the same Beatles album over and over again.

What are you taking about? We've had DRM-free music for a long time now.