Apple has a
detailed guide and a special app to help those switching from an Android. Apple also offers assistance at its retail stores as well as 90 days of free telephone support. Google, which does not itself sell most of the phones that run on Android, has a
web page of tips for those switching from an Apple.
But as I learned, many things can go wrong, and my experience is not unusual.
“You’re going to have to go through the things that are most valuable to you and make sure it’s all there,” said Jonathan S. Geller, editor in chief of BGR, a tech news site that reviews phones and writes frequently about switching. “For a normal consumer, it’s reasonably frustrating.”
Here’s what happened when I switched:
Data Transfer
The problems began at the outset. I downloaded Apple’s switching app,
Move to iOS, to my Samsung and paired the two phones. The app got stuck in the middle of the data transfer and eventually froze.
Verizon, my mobile carrier, offers its own method of transferring data called
Verizon Cloud. I tried it but could not get the two phones to sync directly. I had to back up the Samsung to the cloud, then download the data to the iPhone.
A lot of contacts and photos never made it through. It was as if a moving company had lost half my stuff during a cross-country haul.
Apple later told me that I could have called a toll-free number for help, gone to an Apple store or erased everything and started over. The company lent me another iPhone 6S to try the Move to iOS app again — and this time it did transfer my data. But it failed to do the other half of the job: download the Apple versions of my Android apps to the new iPhone.
Apps
As many phone switchers do, I had to manually reinstall my apps. Popular apps like Facebook, Uber and Amazon were easy to find. But some of my standbys — including a simple public transit app,
BART Runner — were not available for the iPhone, and I have yet to find a perfect replacement.
On the flip side, I can now communicate with my relatives on
FaceTime, Apple’s video chat service, and
read missed issues of The New Yorkerduring long commutes, something that is much harder to do on Android.
I am also now more likely to get early access to cutting-edge apps, since American app makers tend to build for the iPhone first. Last year, for example, when I wanted to try
Twitter’s new Periscope live-streaming app, I had to borrow my wife’s iPhone because Periscope was not yet available for Android.
Look and Feel
The most fundamental difference between iPhones and Androids is the level of conformity dictated by each company. This is where personal preferences play a big role in customer satisfaction.
Apple exercises great control over the look, feel and features of iPhones to deliver its idealized version of what it thinks people want. Android is free-form and adaptable — so much so that the look and feel can vary widely from one phone maker to the next, especially in Asia.
One consequence of Apple’s approach is that the iPhone is more stable. Every Android phone I have ever used has suffered mysterious hardware and software problems like random reboots and crashing apps. These happen much more rarely in iOS.
But Apple’s control has its downsides. The company makes its apps the permanent default options for common services like maps, web browsing and email.
Google also requires most phone makers to make its services the initial default on Android phones, but Android users can change those defaults. For example, if you don’t want to use Google Maps for navigation, you can set your phone to automatically access
Here Maps or
Waze every time you encounter an address.
In my case, I have a Windows laptop; my employer, The New York Times, uses Google’s enterprise apps; and I depend on Google’s search technology to find airline tickets, email addresses and old photos stored in my various digital pockets. My life is deeply enmeshed in the Google ecosystem.
To make my iPhone more familiar and my data easier to find, I put my favorite Google apps on my home screen and mostly use them instead of Apple’s apps. Google has knitted its iPhone apps together so that Gmail uses Google’s browser, Chrome, when you click on a link in an email, and Google’s calendar uses Google Maps when you click on an address.
Bottom Line
Given the headaches of switching, most people avoid it.
Michael R. Levin, partner and co-founder of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, which surveys smartphone users in the United States, said only about one out of five people activating a new iPhone or Android was switching from the other platform. “In the past two years, the loyalty and switching rates have gotten very, very set,” he said.
Over all, I am getting more comfortable with my iPhone. I like Apple’s fingerprint reader and have finally figured out how to align my fingertips precisely enough to unlock the phone (at least most of the time).
Will the iPhone ever feel like home? Check back in two years, when I am due for my next upgrade.
