Switching From iPhone to Android

I’ve recently experienced a couple of switches from iPhone to Android with the purchase of a new Samsung Galaxy S II for me and a HTC Wildfire for my partner and one of my biggest worries beforehand was how we were going to get required data off the iPhone to the new Android devices, especially given Apple’s/iTune’s notorious inflexibility. A quick bit of research and a bit of jumping in at the deep end and everything was sorted fairly easily.

It’s worth noting that you can avoid a certain amount of hassle straight away if you were already syncing your iPhone with the likes of Google Apps which can sync Contacts, Email, Calendar, etc…

HTC WILDFIRE

Contacts

This was the first new phone to arrive and I was really impressed with the setup steps when first turning it on. The HTC prompted me to transfer stuff from my old phone via Bluetooth and even though iPhone’s useless Bluetooth can’t normally connect with ANYTHING, the HTC managed to pair with it and drag in all my partner’s contacts. But that’s all it took in unfortunately.

SMS/Texts

This turned out to be the trickiest one. We both had important texts we didn’t want to lose on our iPhones and were a bit stumped when we seen no obvious way of getting them onto the new phones. A bit of googling turned up this handy article Faked.org/isms2droid/ which explains how to locate your iPhone SMS backup file, convert it to XML and import it using the Android SMS Backup/Restore app.

SAMSUNG GALAXY S II

Contacts

Because this was my own phone and I was already syncing with my Google Apps account, setup was pretty damn easy. Pretty much the first screen you see when turning on the phone was the create or login to your Google account one and once I’d logged in, all my Contact, Calendar and Email information was synced with and added to the phone!

SMS/Texts

I had to go through the same process as for the HTC above to get my texts/SMS’s from the iPhone but I done it a lot quicker now that I was experienced! All texts and conversations were restored from the iPhone backup perfectly.

Media

The transfer of media such as Photos, Videos and iTunes Music was straightforward for both Android phones:

Photos

If you’ve been syncing iPhone photos to a particular folder on your computer then it’s a simple matter of connecting up the HTC via USB and just dragging them to the new phone. If you havn’t been syncing then you can just open the iPhone as a folder and copy the photos out of it then on to the HTC.

Music

Wasn’t sure whether the iPhone or iTunes would put some kind of protection on music downloaded from iTunes but it turns out it doesn’t. Simply locate your iTunes music folder on the computer and drag the music onto the HTC.

Conclusion

So the only thing we really lost from the iPhone were our apps but the ones we used most on are all available in the Android Marketplace, ie – Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Foursquare, etc..

PS – We’re both now delighted to be free from iPhone/iTunes limitations and be proud owners of 2 excellent next gen smart phones running on a much more refreshing and potentially much better Android OS.

Leon