How Easy is it to Switch from iPhone to Android

For those iPhone user who are locked into the iOS ecosystem I wanted to see how difficult it would be for them to switch operating systems by moving to an Android Device.

There is a few tasks, Functions and Apps which user would have to replicate on the android before they could consider switching permanently, I’ve broken them down into categories below.

1) iTunes content

I have a large iTunes collection, it’s very important to me and my perception going into this exercise was that it was going to be difficult to sync the library with the HTC One, however in reality it was quite straight forward.

By simply creating a Play List in iTunes which contained the music I wanted to sync, Easy Phone Tunes quickly copied the music onto the HTC One so that it could be played using the default music player. If you pay for the full version of the app it also syncs Podcasts.

Is Easy Phone Tunes the perfect solution? Not quite. It will happily sync music purchased from the iTunes Store but if you have older music which is protected by Apples DRM system then it wont copy across. There are work arounds but if this affects you it takes a little bit of shine off, but it is a working solution.

2) Video Calling

My family also have iPhones and we use FaceTime regularly to hold video calls, which is an apple only product that is integrated into the iOS operating system and provides a very elegant solution. There are several cross platform video calling apps the most famous of which is Skype.

Skype works well but requires an additional account to be created, it also requires the app to be started on the iPhone as it works as an additional app rather then being integrated into iOS. This results in a less user friendly experience then my family were used to with no integrated contact list. Skype provides a solution for video calling between an iPhone and an Android device but it feels like a step backwards.

3) Streaming Media

There are a number of Streaming Media Apps that people use on a regular basis these are

Amazon Cloud Player – The Cloud Player App provides online access to music which you have purchased on physical CD’s through Amazon. It means that you don’t have to store music on your device as you can stream it straight over the Web. The Android version of the Amazon Cloud Player works well.

YouTube – This is a service which most of us are familiar with, and as expected works fine on the Android device

 BBC iPlayer & BBC Radio - These BBC apps provide access to live BBC TV & Radio Programming and also to Catch up Services, a great tool to have with Mobile Data on a handset and both apps worked well on Android   

TV Catchup – Originally a Web Service but now with its own App TV Catch up provides high quality access to live UK TV stations, the Android app works fine.

Sky Sports Mobile TV - The Sky Sports Mobile TV app has become a favourite of mine on the iPhone, providing live streaming access to the Sky Sports collection of stations. There is an Android version of the App which works on the HTC One ( but not all Android Devices ) but I was disappointed that my subscription couldn’t be transferred between iOS &  Android even though I used the same Sky account on both devices.

4)  Miscellaneous Functions

There are a number of other apps that I use frequently.

The Twitter App works well, and the larger screen helped display the tweets clearer  on screen, the WordPress app wasn’t quite as elegant as the iPhone version but still worked reasonably well.

The Dropbox app I use for automatically uploading camera shots to the cloud service, and the Android version  of the App felt more integrated into the operating system then the iPhone version which frequently required manual intervention.

I like to be kept up to date with the news, and the Android Version of the BBC news and Engadget  apps were more then adequate, and the added bonus of the home screen news feed was appreciated.

So clearly from a perspective of App functionality the jump from iOS to Android is relatively straight forward, and in some cases the larger screen helped but yet the switch wasn’t easy and I experienced a number of problems.

A minor issue is that apps on the Android platform were a little less polished then the iOS versions but this is no way a show stopper, the main issue was not an technology issue.

A lot of my friends are iPhone users, and as such we make extensive use of the integrated features in iOS, – iMessage, Face Time, Find my Friends etc. All great tools, & all brilliantly implemented as standard in iOS. One of the most popular WhatsApp is an app that everyone uses on its smartphone that can be easily backed up and used on Android. WhatsApp can be used on computer as well.

You get used to having these tools available and when you remove yourself from the Ecosystem tasks which were easy and free, start to become more difficult, and this is why (for me at least) the switch wasn’t a pleasurable one and quite a challenge.