0 How to Switch from Android to iOS

So, you've either made the switch to iOS, or you're thinking about it. Congratulations! But, what's going to happen to all your data on your old phone? How do you keep your music, movies, apps, and perhaps most importantly, you contacts? Fortunately, there is a way to keep everything, although admittedly, transferring apps isn't possible, but you may be able to get iOS versions of them, maybe even for free.

Contacts

First of all, let's get those contacts transferred over. I see so many people say they need their friends phone numbers because they got a new phone. There's no excuse for that, phone numbers, emails, and other contact information is very easy to transfer over. Once you have an iPhone, this will all be easy to sync and back up, but even transferring your contacts from Android to iOS is simple. Here's how you can do it.

 

The online method:

This is the easiest way to do keep your contacts, and the way I recommend.

1. First, synchronize your data with your Google account. There's a variety of ways to do this, depending on what Android phone you have, but it should be in the settings.
2. Next up, on your iPhone, go into Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars
3. Set up an Exchange account, not a Google account
4. Input your Google email address and password
5. For the server, type "m.google.com" (no quotes)
6. On the final screen, just make sure it's syncing contacts, and you're good to go.

 

The offline version

There may appear to be less steps here, but it really is a bit more time consuming. I've done this before for an old Samsung phone, before Android came out. It was a pain, as I had to transfer them individually, but I still have all my contacts from when I first got a phone.

• First, get an SD card, skip this if you already have one
• Second, go into your contacts app on your Android phone, press the Menu button, and choose to export your contacts to your SD card
• Now that you have all your contacts on the SD card, you have a few options. On a Mac or PC, you can choose to import your contacts into your computer's address book.
• If you're on a Mac:
• -Sync your iPhone, make sure contacts are set to sync. You're done.
• If your on a Windows PC:
• -Sync your iPhone with iTunes
• -On the sidebar, select your iPhone, and check sync contacts.
• -From the drop down, choose your Windows contacts, you may need to find the location of them.

 

Alternatively, you could also take the .vcf files from your Android phone, and import them to a Google account, and then do the steps I described above for the online version".

Finally, you could email yourself the vcf file, and open it on your iPhone. Select it, and choose to import all the contacts from it. There are probably even more ways to do this, but these are among the easiest (that I know of).

 

If you've followed these steps, your contacts are now on your iPhone, and it wasn't too hard. Now for your music, movies, and TV shows.

 

Media and Documents

Keeping your media is very easy.

Start off by transferring your media to a computer. You could do so in a number of ways. You could either move your media to an SD card and put it on your computer, or you could just attach it via USB and put all your media on your PC or Mac.

Now, just add all that media to iTunes, and sync your iPhone. You're all done. iTunes makes this all very easy.

 

If you have documents, media, or files online in the cloud, like in Dropbox, Google Drive, or any other cloud storage service, don't worry, those apps are all on iOS. Just download the iOS versions of the apps, and log in. You'll have access to all your files.

 

Apps

There's some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is, you can't sync your apps. Although, aside from emulators, malware, porn, and other such apps that are banned from the App Store, you should be able to find all your favorite apps on iOS. In fact, people say that the iOS versions of the apps are far better than the Android versions. Plus, there are plenty of exclusive apps for iOS that you're going to love.

 

For free apps, this is acceptable. But, for apps that you paid for on Android, you'll have to pay for them again on iOS. Maybe. You could always send a email to the developers asking them if they could comp your purchase of the app. Just explain that you paid for it on Android, and see if they'll oblige. They may say no, but that's about all you can do.

 

 

Your data and contacts should be transferred over to iOS by now. So, it's time to enjoy what iOS has to offer. You'll find the app centric pages, simple notifications, clean design, and secure and centralized App Store far more enjoyable than your experience on Android. Plus, over the years, I've made plenty of app recommendations over the years, so look around, play around, and have fun on iOS. Enjoy your new iPhone.

via Gizmodo and Cnet

 

Comment →