by I’ve always been a loyal Android user who’s sworn to never move over to iOS, however Apple’s 2015 iPhones, the 6S and 6S plus, are tempting me to make the leap.
Apple has never been one to flaunt tech specs with their product releases. For them, processing power, battery life or RAM are not what truly matters, what does matter though is how well iPhone improves your life. While Google has been marketing their hardware as powerful tools, Apple has been selling us a lifestyle.
You too might be thinking of making the jump from Android to Apple’s garden of Eden, but is it worth it? And just how easy is it to do?
Apple is certainly keen on getting you to join their team, so much so that they’ve created an app, Move to iOS, to help you out.
The app, which is available in the Google Play Store, allows you to move your contacts and files from your Android device over to your iOS device.
Before you begin transferring all of your content over to your new iPhone, here are a few things you need to know:
- On your Android device, make sure that Wi-Fi is on.
- Plug your new iOS device and your Android device in to power.
- Make sure the content you’re moving, including what’s on your external Micro SD card, will fit on your new iOS device (iPhone doesn’t have SD card expandable storage).
- If you want to transfer your Chrome bookmarks, update to the latest version of Chrome on your Android device.
Move to iOS only works if you’re setting your iPhone as a new device. If
you’ve already set it up and have started customising wallpapers and
screensavers then you’re have to turn to Apple for help on how to move
your content over. If you’re not in the mood to do that, you could factory reset your iPhone and
start from scratch.
Once you’re ready to begin, here’s how to proceed:
- Download the Move to iOS app from the Google Play Store (if you haven’t already).
- Transfer your content over Wi‑Fi (your new iPhone will create a private Wi‑Fi network and find your nearby Android device running Move to iOS.)
- The app will then confirm which content you’d like you’d like to move over, these include your camera roll, Google account data and any bookmarks you might have in your Chrome browser. It will then transfer all of that content over to Apple’s equivalent version of those Android apps.
- Get started with your new iPhone (Once your content has been transferred, you’re ready to get going. iOS will set up your default mail account. It will also add any free and paid apps you already own to your iTunes Wish List so that you can download them when you’re ready)
The process itself is fairly simple but can be time consuming depending on
the amount of content you’re transferring.
If you find that Apple’s apps aren’t quite to your liking, fear not for Google has many apps available for iOS; in fact, you should be able to find just about every Google app that you had on your Android device in the Apple App store.
This means that you won’t lose anything, including your music (if it was purchased through the Play Music app), when you make the move.
On the plus side, you’ll discover that Apple has more apps than Google, which means that you should find every app (or an equivalent) that you had on your Android device, it’s simply a matter of downloading it from the Apple App Store and signing in.
If you’re prompted to pay for the app again, it’s worth getting in contact with the app developer or the app’s customer service team.
That’s it. In just a few minutes you can make the move from Android to iOS and you’ll begin to wonder why you hadn’t made the move sooner.
