It provides same services as Apple ships with iOS (iCloud, Push messaging services, Find my Friend, AppStore, Location, etc.), except that in Android that's branded "malware that calls home" and in Apple world it's called "integral part of the OS".

The only difference here is that in Android you can actually separate the two.

The second difference is, you can replace it - https://microg.org/

This sounds great, but reading the fine print:

>Although most microG components are far from complete, users are amazed by the results.

What users are amazed by what results? And if you read this carefully, it clearly states its missing swaths of the APIs, so its not 1 to 1 compatible and is very likely out of date in at least one reimplementation, per this [0]:

>This is alpha-grade software and not yet ready for production use. Do not use if you don't know what you're doing.

I don't think this would hold up to being what I'd use as a daily driver. I just want my phone to work not fiddle with troubleshooting weird edge cases for apps I want to use.

I applaud the project, but its hardly a simple as saying 'you can replace it' and that's the last you'll have to think about it.

[0] https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki

MicroG still talks to Google services. It takes their code off your device but doesn't relieve you of the primary issue, that everything is dependent on Google's cloud services to work, and that they can still track everything you sent to them.

As can iCloud, but somehow being tethered to APNS doesn't count. When Apple phone's home, it's like ET and you're supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy.