While many people rely entirely on the Apple or Windows/Android ecosystems, others use devices made by a variety of companies, and as a result, they may find themselves in a situation where they need to access Apple apps and services on their Android.
Accessing Apple products from a phone with Google's mobile operating system has indeed become easier over the last few years, but there is certainly room for improvement. To be clear, I'm not talking about switching all your data and files from the Apple ecosystem to Android and ditching Apple. I'm talking about accessing your email, movies, files, etc. through Android, while also using Apple's hardware.
Through the magic of IMAP, you can access your Apple iCloud email from the Gmail app on Android. From the main Mail tab, tap your account's profile picture (top right), then Add another account Follow the instructions. Messages from different accounts are stored separately and have different notification settings. (You can switch between accounts by tapping the account profile picture again.)
Unfortunately, it's not so simple when it comes to contacts and calendar information. If you give up your Apple device, you can transfer this data from iOS or iCloud to Google, but you can't set up a two-way sync and keep the channels open like you can with email that arrives in your Apple inbox.
Gmail for Android can handle multiple accounts, including Apple accounts.
Credit: Lifehacker
Opening iCloud on the web in your Android web browser won't help you here (more on that below), because the Contacts and Calendar components of the iCloud web portal, which you can see and interact with just fine within a desktop browser, don't appear when using a mobile browser.
There are a variety of apps in the Google Play Store that will pull your Apple contacts and calendars onto your Android, but in my experience they're not particularly trustworthy, and they require you to trust a third party with your Apple login credentials. A first-party app from Apple would be ideal, but that could be a long time coming.
iCloud Files, Photos, and Videos
Without an official iCloud app for Android, you can't easily get anything from iCloud Drive or the Apple Photos app onto your Android device. A less-than-ideal option is to access iCloud on the web in your Android web browser and log in with your Apple credentials to access apps like iCloud Drive, Photos, Mail, Notes, Find My, and Reminders (but not Contacts or Calendars).
iCloud running in a mobile browser is actually not as bad as it sounds, but it's not as good as the dedicated native mobile apps. You can do pretty much everything you can do with iCloud in a desktop web browser on Android, which means you can view and download photos and videos, for example, but you won't get editing capabilities or anything like that.
Some iCloud web apps are accessible from Android.
Credit: Lifehacker
The iCloud Drive portion of the web portal is similar: you can view, share, delete, move, duplicate, and rename files with a few taps on the screen, and you can upload files to the iCloud and Photos apps, but there's no way to directly sync images and videos taken on your Android device to iCloud.
Other extra features available in iCloud on the web are also here, including Hide Emails, HomeKit Secure Video, and more. Meanwhile, when you open the Find My app, your Apple devices will appear on a map – very handy if you lose access to your device but have access to your Android device (Apple Maps on the web doesn't work in mobile browsers yet, so sadly it's not available).
Streaming and Entertainment
Getting Apple Music on your Android device couldn't be easier: just install Apple Music for Android, one of the few mobile apps Apple actually develops for its Google platform (including one that will detect AirTags that don't belong to you), and switch from Android to iOS. The Android version of Apple Music isn't as polished as its iOS counterpart, but it works well enough.
Unfortunately, there's no Apple TV app for Android phones or tablets yet. If you want to access Apple TV+ or content purchased from your Apple Entertainment Library on your Android device, you'll need to visit Apple TV on the web in your Android web browser and log in with your Apple credentials.
Apple TV works fine with the Android web browser.
Credit: Lifehacker
Again, it's not the slickest experience, but that's ok: you can stream whatever you want to watch in your Android browser and switch to full-screen mode when you want, and your viewing is all synced across devices, so you can start watching on your Mac and finish it on your Android phone if you want.
Apple Podcasts also offers convenient web access: just open the Apple Podcasts web portal to continue listening where you left off, see new episodes, subscribe to new podcasts, and more. There's also a web player for Apple Music, which you can access from your Android device if you don't want to install the app.