Mobile technology moves rapidly these days. Even iPhone’s are releasing quicker now. Android has the reputation of releasing tons of devices frequently. My observation and analysis, in general, people tend to favor either iOS over Android or visa versa depending on who they start with. In other words if you start out with an Android device, you are more than likely to prefer Android over iPhone given the choice. But at times people like myself want to try the latest and greatest.
History shows in my device timeline that I have favored the iPhone over Android the majority of the time. But I am a rare type who likes both platforms over the other. Being that I am a Macbook user, the iPhone is needless to say a lot more compatible with Macs. Among other reasons to use the iPhone. But each time I make a switch between an iPhone to an Android device there are steps and procedures to make the transition as painless as possible.
Obviously, Android is powered by Google and iPhone’s are powered by Apple’s iOS operating system. The two intersect in a few areas like the use of contacts, email and apps. What I want to do is help lay out guide that helps transition between devices. Some features will work themselves out, but others you will want to manually set things up before making the move. For this post we will go over the transition coming from an iPhone to an Android device. The importance will not be in any particular order but are all things to consider when for making the transition easy. I also realize I will not be able to cover all options, so with that said the following is to help get you from point A to B with different avenues. If you have other pointers, feel free to sound off.
For Article 1 we will cover contacts, music and photos.
CONTACTS
iOS has a great contacts management system. Backups are great, adding/deleting/editing contacts are quite easy. All contacts are saved in iCloud, but you have to choice to save it via Google Contacts aswell. While you have the option of saving contacts through Google, I recommend doing the following.
- For Mac – Go to the Contacts app > Click File > Click Export. Export the file to your desired location. I like to save it temporarily to the desktop. Next go to gmail.com and find the contacts tab on the left side of the screen > Click Import > Select Choose File and choose the file saved to the desktop. After that finishes you contacts are now updated in Google Contacts.
- For PC – find the contacts application used on your specific OS and follow the same steps as the Mac.
This is helpful for the cause of when you boot up your new Android device and sign in you Google Account, the contacts will automatically show up.
MUSIC
Music management in my opinion is far better between iPhones and iTunes. I am a Mac user and Samsung devices do not play nice with Macs. In order to manage music and files manually you have to install extra programs to perform tasks. I have always loved being able to set my sync options with an iPhone and iTunes and let it do its thing. But even until recently when I was using the iPhone I was limited to the amount of songs on the device. So I sought out ways to be able to listen to my entire iTunes library. Google Music was the answer.
To learn how to sync Google Music with iTunes check out THIS post. For Android devices download the Google Music App from the Play Store. For iOS users I have done the homework for you. You will have to pay for the following app, but it is worth it. The app is called gMusic and can download it at the Apple App Store. It will set you back $1.99 but out of the Google Music apps I flipped around with, it was the best option I found.
Both Android and iOS versions give you the opportunity to listen to the music on the device or by streaming the content. So here is the disclaimer. The streaming uses data, so be be careful and use WiFi when possible. Even if you are on an unlimited data plan, even though carriers claim they do not throttle data, they do. So keep your usage under 2GB and you should be good to go.
The beauty of using Google Music is you get to have your iTunes library everywhere you without taking up storage space on your device. Meaning you then have room for more photos, apps and videos.
Photos
First head on over to THIS post about transferring iDevice files to a computer. But there are other great ways to transfer or access your photos. Using cloud services is a great way to save all your photos. Personally I have found that Dropbox is a great tool. Within the app you can enable photos to be synced with the online folder “Camera Uploads” so each time you snap a shot the photo is automatically sent to the designated folder. To save data usage you can select to send photos only over WiFi. Google Drive is another worthy cloud service worth checking out.
Cloud services are great to use if you are adapted to devices that have no external memory options. But for those who do use external memory there are some ways to keep it simple for saving photos and transferring photos between devices. There are two main ways that I use my SD card. One is to keep the card in the device and use the USB cable transfer option. But for Mac users like myself, Samsung devices to not play nice with Macs. So my next option is to use a SD card reader/adapter, which requires you to remove the card from the device and place it in the adapter.
I own an elago USB High Speed Memory Card Reader, which allow me to use my SD card from the phone and use it like a flash drive.
Wrapping things up
There are actually a lot ways to make life easier for switching between devices. These have been some of the useful tips I have used in the past and use on a regular basis. These are only 3 subjects covered, stay tuned for more tips of making the transition between iOS and Android devices. Have suggestions or questions, leave a comment with your thoughts.
