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Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by pimlottc on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @11:02AM (#29725996)
Does Apple offer a webmail interface or is it just through their own apps/imap? How do you find their interface compared to gmail?
Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by hughrr on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @11:10AM (#29726098)
Yes they do offer a web app. It's nearly exactly the same as the desktop Mac app from a usability perspective. I can't really compare to Gmail recently however. It probably has feature parity bar some organisational stuff but is 100% completely different and you need to take time to learn it.

Their cloud offering is fairly poorly promoted and no one seems to notice it exists. You have mail, contacts, calendar, photos, drive, notes, reminders, documents, spreadsheets, presentations and device location all via their web interface all of which real time sync with desktop and iOS apps.

But note as always that the apps are Apple design centric which means they have intentionally limited feature sets and not many bells and whistles compared to some competition. If you learn to meet them in the middle they are monumentally powerful however, particularly in combination with Shortcuts app. I have a lot of event driven and schedule stuff set up with that which keeps me organised and kills a lot of routine tasks for me. I could not have set this up with Microsoft or Google ecosystems without resorting to actually writing horrible API manipulating code and having to host it somewhere. I just tap some shit out in the shortcuts app on my iPad or iPhone or Mac and it just works quietly and reliably. It's not perfect of course due to pre-existing expectations as a programmer mostly, but it's a real hidden chunk of gold once you wrap your head round it.

Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by pimlottc on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @08:15PM (#29732345)
I’ve been meaning to dig into Shortcuts, what are some examples of automations you’ve setup with it?
Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by hughrr on Thursday December 30, 2021 @03:37AM (#29734885)
Key things are adding regularly scheduled daily and monthly items to reminders, image batch processing, silencing my devices when I get to the office, distributing event photo galleries, generating PDFs and scanning and filing receipts for expenses.
Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by ericmay on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @11:04AM (#29726011)
They have a webmail interface on icloud.com. It's probably not as "good" as Gmail - fewer features (is that worse?) but then similar to Gmail you can use any web client you want. Hell can't you sign in to your icloud email on Gmail and still use Gmail if you wanted?
Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by pimlottc on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @08:16PM (#29732350)
I assume you mean having Gmail connect to your iCloud email through IMAP?
Re:Ask HN: Any better alternatives to Google Workspace for a... by ylor on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @11:04AM (#29726025)
They do, through icloud.com However, it does not compare favorably