2026-04-03

# Apple iOS lock-in is painful

Disclaimer
 - **Quick Note**

Main
 - Consider following use cases:
   - contact list (.vcf)
   - books (.epub)
   - calendar and alarms (.ics, ???)
   - latest notes, not necessarily all notes (.md)
 - On linux or macOS you can write all these in plaintext-equivalent formats, and use simple bash scripts to manage everything.
 - On iOS you have to use apps that lock-in for everything:
   - phone and email contact lists won't sync
   - apple books won't let you export the .epub files
   - there is no command at all for triggering notifications, you need a full-fledged app to do so. if you're locked in a calendar app (google calendar or apple calendar), you're stuck in that
   - rsync doesn't work, iOS has done app-level filesystem sandboxing. I currently put all my notes in a single file because you can sync files using icloud and runestone, but you can't actually sync folders without a seperate app to do so.
 - Waiting for the day we have a good open source mobile OS