>You shouldn't trust any company. Not Apple, not Microsoft, and not Google
Agreed. It's very difficult to convey this point, however. People don't really listen once you say these sorts of things. Even if they do, they don't change the way they work with those companies. This is especially true with Facebook. I've shown a lot of scary practices of Facebook to various people. All agree that Facebook is therefore pretty dangerous but continue to use it on a daily basis.
>"the cloud" is a stupid idea.
I do take issue with "the cloud" regarding the issues of your things not belonging to you, privacy issues, etc. There are benefits to e.g. hosting providers. I also would love Dropbox if my files were encrypted and impossible to view by staff.
The bottom line is that we need more companies who insure privacy rather than just claiming to respect it even though they store large quantities of personal information. Other such companies should work to avoid vendor lock-in.
People said the same thing about the internet and insisted that only direct-dial communications made any sense. This is one of those cases where I think the market will take care of things.
Exactly - since when has 'trust' ever been absolute?
Do I trust Apple to make awesome laptops and cell phones? Yes.
Do I trust Apple to keep OS X open to third party development? Yes, I do. Mostly.
Do I trust Apple to keep my personal email, email that might contain passwords and account names, secure and safe? Probably not, which is part of the why I don't use my iCloud email account.
Do I trust Apple to not sunset iCloud email in a few years, invalidating my @icloud.com address that I would have handed out to everyone, leaving me high and dry? No, I don't - and I think that's a much more potent danger for anyone using their @icloud.com email account.
It's not a question of whether you should use certain products. It becomes a question of whether you should trust Apple at all.