As is also natural, an iPhone obtains many advantages from the use in parallel with a Mac computer, because the various Apple applications integrate with each other offering an experience of continuity, so that each activity can be started by a part and continued on the other. We thus have applications such as that of the Notes which synchronizes on Mac, iCloud to keep personal files and photos, the Handoff option, the phone book also synchronized in iCloud, the calendar app, the mail and Safari, which keeps favorites and passwords to be able to use them indifferently from every Apple device that is accessed with the same account.
If, however, you do not have a Mac, if you do not have an iPad or even worse if you use another Android smartphone or tablet, then all these Apple application features are lost and it does not really make sense to keep them active.
Configuring the iPhone for those without a Mac (and therefore using PCs and Windows, Linux, Chrome or Android devices ) means using non-Apple settings and applications (and forgetting iCloud which, by the way, is also very limited in its free account ) and, to be precise, use Google services .
The advantage in using Google services instead of Apple services is twofold: on the one hand it is possible to integrate the iPhone with any computer, on the other you get compatibility of all the functions so that you can communicate, synchronize and exchange data also with PC Windows and Android or non-Apple smartphones .
1) First of all, we disable Apple apps that we don't need
This step is optional and depends a lot on the type of use of the iPhone, but in general it is better to disable all these things in order not to have active duplicate services.
In Settings, go to iCloud and disable iCloud Drive, Photos and all apps, including backup too .
The automatic backup of the iPhone in iCloud can be useful in the future only if there are particular configurations, otherwise, for important things such as the address book, photos and documents, we will go to use the Google apps.
It should only be noted that by deactivating iCloud Drive you lose the possibility of automatically backing up Whatsapp conversations, which on the iPhone is all based on iCloud.
Then go to Settings> General and disable Handoff that we really don't need if we don't have a Mac.
Still in Settings, go to Facetime and disable it if it is never used (Facetime is the videochat that only works between iPhone and Mac users, but there are alternatives).
In Settings> Photos and Camera, disable iCloud Photo Library, my photo streaming, iCloud Photo Sharing .
2) Save the Address Book and keep it synchronized
The phonebook of the iPhone, by default, synchronizes in iCloud so that even if you lose your phone, the numbers will always be recoverable.
However, having iCloud deactivated and to make the address book easily visible from any PC and at the same time it is also possible to synchronize it with any other Android smartphone or tablet, it is better to use a Google account.
First of all, install the Google app, central and essential to register with a Google account if it has never been done, or access and manage all the options.
In Settings> Contacts, go to Accounts, then to new account and add the Google account.
As already explained at the time, a backup of the iPhone address book is obtained in Google / Gmail.
3) Email and Calendar
If you use Gmail as your primary email address, it's also worth syncing the Mail app with Gmail.
This is done in Settings> Mail> Add account .
You can skip this step by installing Gmail on iPhone, which is a little different than the Mail app already installed on iPhone.
The same type of operation can be done for the Calendar, which thus synchronizes with the Google Calendar, clearly better than any other service of this type.
If you prefer, you can download the Google Calendar app for iPhone to have more features than the standard Calendar app.
4) Notes
In Settings> Notes we have disabled the synchronization of notes written in the iPhone Notes app.
Instead of this application, it is better to use Google Keep, which works in a similar way and provides access to notes from Google accounts on every PC, smartphone and also via the web.
5) Photos
In step 1 we said to disable automatic photo backup in iCloud.
This is an important point, because iCloud has a limit of 5 GB in the free account and we know very well that 5GB are very few for storing photos.
Instead of iCloud, we are going to use the Google Photos app, which instead has unlimited space for backing up photos and videos recorded with the iPhone.
The only limitation is that the backup of photos has no limits for images up to 16 MP and for videos with 1080p resolution, which is also a lot for those who take photos with the iPhone.
In Google Photos, activate the automatic backup and also note its numerous functions, which also allow you to free up space on the iPhone when it is running out, deleting the photos and videos already saved in the Google cloud (which always remain visible if you have internet connection and which can be downloaded from any PC by going to the Google Photos website).
6) Various documents and files
As for Office or PDF documents, for creating, saving, editing and viewing the app to always install is Google Drive.
With Google Drive all documents and files of all formats can be stored so that they can be recovered via PC or Android devices in a synchronized way.
Google Drive is also useful for quickly exchanging files between PC and iPhone.
7) Music
Music synchronizes with the PC via the iTunes program also in Wifi, which also works well on Windows PCs.
But I remember that it is also possible to synchronize the music of the Windows 10 PC on the iPhone without using any program, thanks to a function added by Microsoft in the latest version of Windows.
Alternatively, you can always Google Music to hear PC music on iPhone without having to sync it
7) Other apps
Other Google apps that can come in handy on an iPhone to replace Apple's are:
- Google Duo for video calls, instead of Facetime (although biosngerà tell friends and family to install the Duo app).
- Google Maps, which everyone should already have, clearly better than Apple Maps, above all because all the favorite places and the search history are synchronized with the Google Maps website (if the same account is also used on a PC).
8) Safari and browser favorites
Safari is, of course, the fastest iPhone browser, also because it is integrated into the system.
However, those who use a Windows PC will probably use Chrome or Firefox and will find themselves with a Safari that does not synchronize favorites and passwords.
The solution is to use Chrome or Firefox on iPhone (depending on what is used on the PC) and log in with the same Google or Mozilla account to synchronize favorites, passwords and settings, thus obtaining the same ability that Safari has when used on Mac and iPhone.
Alternatively, as seen, you can also synchronize Safari with Chrome.
Once the iPhone is configured with these applications and options, we have easy access to all phone data (address book, photos, emails etc.) from any PC and even if it breaks or is lost, we can easily restore them on a new iPhone / iPad or even on a Samsung Galaxy or any other Android smartphone / tablet.
