From Dieter Bohn, at The Verge:

Looking across the updates in El Capitan, the story is clear: Apple is making life way better for people who live in its ecosystem. But if you don’t live in Apple’s garden, the benefits are less clear.

As services for cloud storage and syncing have become a core part of modern computing, I would argue that “ecosystem” and “platform” are now synonymous. The incentive of staying within one platform isn’t limited to Apple. GMail customers get a better experience using Hangouts rather than Facebook, and Office365 still works best on Windows PCs. So while I think cross platform support, or lack thereof, is a worthwile subject for debate, likening Apple’s enhancements to their own desktop operating system as being a “walled garden” is akin to criticizing Google Photos’ lack of support for those using a Yahoo account. It all seems a bit…

…but to take advantage of Apple’s updates you really need to use Apple’s apps.