- calculator - camera - clock - contacts - messages - phone - photos - safari
If you literally use none of these apps, I would be really surprised.
Since we're sharing anecdotes: I've never had a problem with WiFi connectivity or Spotlight on El Capitan across multiple devices. I don't use iWork or Siri, so I can't speak to that. iCloud seems fine to me, but I don't use it extensively.
Well, actually, I don't use Safari, but that's a very particular use case. I wanted to block sites, so I disabled Safari, enabled parental controls, and am using the Google app because it's less convenient and less likely to suck me into time wasters.
Though actually, the dictation search in Google now is better than Safari. And I like being able to have my homepage be a google search. Impossible in Safari.
As for my SO, syncing iphone 5 to mac (on 10.10) just doesn't work anymore. I'm going to have to spend hours debugging why the fuck not soon. And recently her iphone has stopped connecting to wifi. To make it connect, you have to delete the wifi credentials then reboot the device. She already walked through a reset with apple over the phone but it continues to happen. It's infuriating.
Same for clock apps. Clock in your taskbar, sure; but who would ever start a dedicated clock app? I barely touch Contacts and always from other apps. Photos is terrible, but that's been the case for a while now, the obsession with hiding the filesystem has degenerated in an unusable interface (sharing in particular is just mystifying).
Of your list, I do use Messages (you don't really get a choice, if you want to receive SMS texts...) and Safari (again, no real choice), as well as the Camera simply because I use it so little it's not worth my time looking for a better app.
That's where the alarm is, and personally I use it several times a day, to wake me up and to remember the occasional meeting or random events I would otherwise forget about.
I hate ios Photos, mostly because of the white backgrounds however.
Good point. I never really used alarms until Siri, because it was too cumbersome. Now setting and deleting alarms via Siri is probably the best voice-recognition experience I've ever had.
> Since we're sharing anecdotes
Well, some of his points were anecdotes, some were observations about how he interacts with apple, and some were specific accounts of problematic functionality.
> iCloud seems fine to me, but I don't use it extensively.
The claims were that it had some poorly worded confirmations for deleting files when you unsync a device (subjective but testable), that iTunes has a history of destroying files on syncs (should be testable with some searching), and that iTunes will add apps to his computer after he deletes them from his phone (probably needs clarification, but definitely testable).
Responding to a comment with an accusation that it's full of anecdotes and then responding to a portion of that comment which has real, testable assertions with a hedged anecdote is not a useful way to further relevant discussion.
I was wrong. I had forgotten that I do use several default apps, taking them for granted, and overstated my case.
"I'm not sure how someone would go about not using any Apple app, such as calculator, camera, clock, contacts, messages, phone, photos, safari. Do you not require a lot of what these apps provide, or have actually found good alternatives for each of them?"
or
"I really can't imagine not using any Apple apps. How do you get by without any of them?"
In each of these cases, the problem is presented as a failure of the asker's imagination or knowledge, and we ask for clarification on this point. IMO, this is a much more civil way to converse than starting out by questioning the veracity of someone's statements about theirself.
