Moving from Android to iPhone

I have been a Samsung Android user for many years, most recently using a Samsung Galaxy A5. Over time my family have all acquired Apple iPhones, so – with a view to us all being on the same ecosystem – I made the move myself.

The transfer from old to new for the rest of my family was smooth. Apple makes this process extremely easy. When setting up a new iPhone you simply choose to transfer settings from your old iPhone. You sit the two phones next to each other, they communicate for a bit and then, hey presto, all settings are moved across.

I knew the process would not be quite as simple from Android, but honestly, it was bumpier than I expected. Here are the gotchas.

Move to iOS app

For Android users, within the Google Play store, Apple provides a Move to iOS app. This is to help transfer settings from Android to iPhone. In theory it can move messages, contacts, apps, photos and WhatsApp content.

However, when I tried to use it, it failed the first time, and my new iPhone chose to wipe itself. The second time around was more successful – though it turned out that I needed this app less than I thought.

My photos are saved to OneDrive, so I did not need to move them. WhatsApp, when installed, restores your previous messages. Existing apps are easily downloaded from the Apple store and I used this as an opportunity to reduce down the apps I use.

Recommendation: use this app to simply move text messages and contacts across.

Apple account

My new iPhone does not have a physical slot for a sim card – instead, it uses an eSim – a virtual SIM. While this seems like inevitable progress, it led to a frustrating setup process.

As a new iPhone user, I was encouraged to login to my Apple ID. I had set up an Apple ID in advance and during setup it tried to send me a text message to confirm my account. But I could not receive it as I had not yet got to the point where the eSim was activated.

My Apple account then offered to authenticate me using my stored bank account details – except I could not enter the expiry date on my debit card because the on-screen date picker was obscured by the Continue button. Argh! For a company that prides itself on its UX this was very frustrating.

Eventually I worked out that I could skip the Apple ID login, could continue to setup my phone, including the eSim and log into Apple ID later.

Recommendation: login to your Apple account after initial setup.

Microsoft Authenticator

I use the Microsoft Authenticator for multi-factor authentication (MFA) a lot. It is used to secure my various work accounts, plus also my personal Amazon and PayPal accounts.

I had read in advance that it could be problematic to lose access to your Authenticator – but that its settings could be backed up and then restored on to a new device.

This is true – if you are moving from iPhone to iPhone or from Android phone to Android phone. However, this does not work if moving from Android to iPhone.

To backup and restore Microsoft Authenticator settings on iPhone you need to use the Apple keychain, which is not available on an Android phone. Argh again! I was worried that I would not be able to log into my accounts.

It was not as big a deal as I feared. I simply logged into all the account providers – Microsoft, Amazon, PayPal etc. using my old phone to authenticate. I was then able to unregister my old phone and register my new phone. A bit laborious but straightforward enough.

Recommendation: keep hold of your old phone and don’t wipe it, until all accounts are transferred.

With those setup issues out of the way, the following were less impactful, but still annoyances.

Bing lock screen image

On my Android phone I like the way you can easily freshen up the lock screen and wallpaper. There are several Android apps you can use to set your lockscreen to the Bing image of the day.

Apple also allows you to set you lock screen and wallpaper – but the experience is more restrictive.

iPhone apps do exist to set your lockscreen to the Bing image – but they get poor ratings as they tend to include adverts, and Apple does not allow the app to update the image in the background. That is right, you must manually run the app every day.

Fortunately I found this: Bing-Wallpaper-for-iOS. This approach uses an iPhone “Shortcut” – essentially a macro – that sets the lockscreen image. The documentation at GitHub walks you through how to setup Shortcut Automation – so that it runs automatically every day. As an iPhone amateur it took a little time to figure out how to do this. But now it is setup my lockscreen is updated daily exactly like it used to on my Android phone, and it looks great!

Too many accounts for contacts

When I used the Move to iOS app it transferred across my Microsoft and Google accounts and their related contacts. In addition, it moved the contacts to my Apple account.

This led to lots of flickering when looking at contacts as they were synchronised across three different accounts. Ultimately, I chose to remove the Google (Gmail) account which helped to stop excessive synchronisation.

Ringtones

Apple wants you to buy ringtones from the iTunes store. However, I had a couple of MP3s on my Android phone that I wanted to use.

You can do this, but you must go through several steps to do so, that involve using the iTunes app to restrict the playing time of the MP3 to 30 seconds, converting it to an m3a file, then renaming it to an m3r file and lastly using iTunes to transfer it to your iPhone.

Wow. Apple really do not want you to use your own files!

Gestures

The last niggle is just a learning point. Without having the three navigation buttons on an Android phone I had to learn certain common gestures on the iPhone to go back, switch apps and get to the home screen.

It wasn’t a huge annoyance, but the iPhone doesn’t go out of its way to teach you the gestures. I had to look them up.

Gotchas and annoyances out of the way, what do I like about the iPhone?

Form factor

It is a nice device! It looks good in my official Apple case, and the screen is high quality

Convergence

Now that we are all on the same ecosystem, I can use location sharing and Find My Phone to see where my loved ones are

Similarly, I can use Screentime to manage my youngest daughter’s phone use. She no longer has to nag her mother.

Also, I can share a Family Apple Music subscription across my family.

Charging

I am enjoying the MagSafe charger I bought – it is fast and convenient

All in all, I would not say that I am a fan boy. Not yet. But I am enjoying my iPhone, and I really do not want to shift ecosystem again anytime soon!