Are you an iPhone user that wonders if the grass is greener on the Android side? Well, it will soon be a whole lot easier to find out if that’s true or not, as Google seems to be in the middle of launching its long awaited ‘Switch to Android’ app for iOS.
Uncovered by 9to5Google, and still only available via a direct link — this direct link, to be precise — the process all looks set to be very simple, provided you have your existing iPhone and the Android handset you want to switch to within easy reach.
Unfortunately, while everything seems to work on the iPhone side, it doesn’t currently appear to be up and running on Android, which probably explains why it’s not yet findable via the App Store. It would be weird if Google, the kings of search, had forgotten to properly optimise the listing, after all.
Still, the screenshots make it pretty clear how this will all work, and it’s completely wireless.
After accepting a whole host of terms and conditions Google secretly knows you won’t have read, you’ll be instructed to scan a QR code on your target Android device. From there, you then select what you want to come with you, with options to take contacts, calendar events, photos and videos.
In the case of the latter, only locally stored media will come across immediately, with the app allowing you to request a copy of your data to be moved from iCloud to Google Photos later. The app will also explain how to turn off iMessage to ensure that you start getting text messages on your new device.
While it’s still not as straightforward as moving from Android to iPhone (Apple’s corresponding software for Android is capable of moving apps as well — something not possible here thanks to iOS’ strict privacy controls), it’s still a big improvement on what came before. In the bad old days, moving from iPhone to Android involved a manual upload of data to Google Drive, which then had to be downloaded on the new device. Not the ideal welcome to a strange, new operating system.
It also doesn’t seem to transfer texts, which is a shame if you like to have an archive of old messages at the ready to help win pointless arguments with friends.
Still, if you use WhatsApp, the company does have a (currently quite limited) way of transferring your archives across, if you happen to be moving to a Samsung handset. According to WhatsApp, more options will follow “in the coming months”…
