<p>Locking yourself within a walled garden is the hidden cost you pay for some gadgets, but you can live a cross-platform life.</p><p>Whenever you buy a new Apple, Microsoft or Google gadget, it's easy to go with the flow and embrace their entire ecosystem. They'll happily handle your entire digital life from email, contacts and calendars to photos, music, videos, documents and back-ups. Generally it all ''just works'' and they take care of everything behind the scenes.</p><p>In the short term, such an approach can make your life easier, but putting all your eggs in one basket can cause problems. For starters, you're more vulnerable to service outages and hacking attacks that could wipe your entire digital life in a heartbeat. But platform lock-in also makes life harder if you want to change allegiances in the future, or you simply want to run a blended household with a mix of gadgets.</p><p>Apple's ecosystem is the most frustrating when it comes to locking you in. Apple's eBooks can only be read on iGadgets, while calendars created in Apple's iCloud can't be shared with non-Apple users. Apple's iCloud back-up only stores iWork office files, while iWork files can only be edited on Apple products. Apple also has a tendency to drop support for old devices and operating systems, forcing you to upgrade. Once you're sucked into the Apple ecosystem, it's hard to break away.</p><p><a href="http://www.watoday.com.au/digital-life/computers/dont-fence-me-in-20130509-2j8o9.html">Keep reading...</a></p>