Android Migration

http://www.apple.com/ios/ios9-preview/#android

by taspeotis • 11 years ago

52 73 11 years ago

pavlov2• 11 years ago

It seems a bit evil that Apple takes advantage of Android's open APIs to provide this tool, yet it's not possible to write a tool to go the other way because so much iOS user data is locked in by Apple.

(You can of course get some of this data from iOS, but things like preferences and settings from the default applications just are not accessible.)

iOS, the "Hotel California" of mobile?

luso_brazilian• 11 years ago

Evil is a very loaded word because the API is being used for the exact purpose it was created: to allow the users of the platform to move their data unimpeded.

This kind of reasoning central point of the copyleft vs. permissive licensing debate: should the goal be

- to maximize the freedom of choice for the end user even if the choice curtails his own freedom?

- or to maximize the freedom of the software / system itself even if that curtails the freedom of choice for the end user?

Whatever the path taken it is naive to expect people and companies to follow the spirit of the license instead of its letter when is more beneficial to them to follow the later. Neither imoral nor evil IMO.

zamalek2• 11 years ago

It's one of those sad cases where someone "doing the right thing" opens doors for the bad guys. I remember Google having a page that "educated" about the potential pitfalls of having data locked up in Facebook (on the OAuth approval page). Maybe they will do the same thing here?

Thing is: for technical people like us it's a no-brainer, stay the hell away. This kind of thing is going to get a whole bunch of Aunt Tillys locked up in Apple. From that perspective the one option is clearly more "evil" as it preys on ignorance.

pavlov2• 11 years ago

Sure, it's not evil in the ISIS/Cheney sense, not even in the "banner that looks like a Download button on Sourceforge" sense...

But it's misleading because it creates the impression that users can easily move between mobile operating systems, when in fact this door Apple has built is strictly one-way. They won't tell you that ahead of time, of course.

To us technical users, it's obvious that moving data between closed server-based services is fraught with complications. But a lot of regular people don't understand those nuances. Copying data from a phone to another is just moving over some files, right? Apple is supporting that expectation.

MCRed9• 11 years ago

The idea that you're locked up in an Evil Apple Fortress, while Google is the open land of the free is not only hyperbolic dogma, it's simply false.

Apple and Google both make access to the lists of songs, contacts, photos, etc data on your device and this app simply uses those APIs to transfer the DRM free music and other data from one device to the other.

It's true that your data being on one device makes it difficult for average people to migrate when they switch devices.

The only difference here is that Apple took the time to write a program to make the transfer onto their platform easy for users. They've had a similar migration assistant for OS X for around a decade.

This is consistent with Apple's focus on the user and building of consumer level technology.

Google's approach is different. Android is just a strategic action, not a product, and so they don't really care to put this level of effort in.

That doesn't make Google virtuous or Apple evil. In fact, I would say focusing on making your customers lives better is virtuous.

It's a shame that such an ideology has sprung up that everything Apple does is routinely asserted to be evil here, even though most of it is designed to protect users, while google, which does nothing to protect people and frequently violates users rights is sign as some paragon of virtue.

xbmcuser• 11 years ago

I think most people dont care about how closed apple app ecosystem and is not the reason they call it evil. They call apple evil for introducing features in iOS copied from popular apps then outright ban or put hurdles in the way of that app. I dont care that apple allows migration from Android to iOS but they should also allow it to go the other way as well. Apple behaviour with ebook publishers, coders and now the with rumors going on about music shows a consistent. Immoral behaviour if not alway illegal. The Ceo of Apple harps about how people are stealing your data not respecting people privacy but at the same time introduces similar features. They wont be using to sell ad space but they are still getting and collecting the same data.

coob• 11 years ago

Android does the same thing:

http://www.android.com/switch/

threeseed5• 11 years ago

Your argument seems pretty misplaced to me. You actually think it's a good idea for third party apps to access preferences/settings from the system and other apps ? Personally I think it's a massive security and privacy risk that will be exploited and used for means that in 99.999% of cases the user never wants. I don't think Apple is being evil at all but rather looking out for their users.

You could already access most relevant information through secured authentication to iCloud anyway.

ignoramous2• 11 years ago

I think, if you look at it from the perspective of a user who wants to switch from Android to iOS, this tool makes the job easier. And I wouldn't fault Apple for making this transition smoother, they're being "customer-centric" in my books. Is it not that you can take your data and move to any other platform the entire selling point of Android and the openness?

I'd venture that Google's tightening its grip on Android and making it more closed than it ever was. A high profile engineer, JBQ, quit AOSP project for a reason. As an android user, one is already consuming a lot of Google resources for free; and Google isn't going to sit back and not make you pay for it.

arpit• 11 years ago

So why aren't they being Customer centric by allowing such tools on the iOS AppStore. Heck, even the word "Android" is banned

http://www.techhive.com/article/188696/Apple_Bans_the_Word_A...

sangnoir• 11 years ago

I'd venture that Google's tightening its grip on Android and making it more closed than it ever was. A high profile engineer, JBQ, quit AOSP project for a reason

It might seem nit-picky, but that is so vague as to be untrue. The reason JBQ quit, as I pieced together from his G+/tweets, was because of 3rd party drivers for a Nexus device that were not released as open source as he would have liked (he managed AOSP releases). Inferring from his posts at the time, this was something he realised as a potential problem ahead of time and notified legal, but it seemed nothing was done (or they failed in negotiating with manufacturer).

I'm not a Googler, so I could also be off-base here. I apologise ahead of time if I misrepresented anyone.

comex3• 11 years ago

For the record, you can get all of that data over USB if you have a computer handy, though these days not everyone does.

S4M• 11 years ago

Seriously, it's a bit annoying to have so many news related to apple products making it to the front page of HN today.

throwaway12309• 11 years ago

Just avoid HN for a week or so while WWDC is on. It is always like this

girvo• 11 years ago

And the same for BUILD and IO. Tech geeks get excited when tech companies announce things, news at 11.

castell• 11 years ago

It was similar after Microsoft's BUILD conference and Google's IO conference. Though, comparing all three conferences, there were only big flame wars and bad behavior in MS conf related news.

MCRed9• 11 years ago

Well, I haven't seen a lot of non-political stuff about the Apple announcements.

Even open sourcing Swift was criticized and used as an opportunity to bash Apple.

It's kinda bad when HNers are bashing a company for the "crime" of open sourcing a new programming language / platform.

kyriakos2• 11 years ago

This is actually an Android openness success story. Even if Android is not as open as it should it still shows how much better it is in this subject.

MCRed9• 11 years ago

Oh really? I notice that you all are just assuming so.

Exactly what data are apps not able to reach on iOS that they are able to reach on Android?

If Google cared about their customers they could write this kind of App as well.

But google is not in the same business as Apple. Apple is making the best platform they can. Google is in the business of commoditizing Apple's platform so that google can sell ads on it.

Apple charges for its platform and protects customer data. Google gives the platform away for free at the price of your immortal soul.

kyriakos2• 11 years ago

everyone is entitled to their own opinion

chinpokomon• 11 years ago

Google has provided cloud app storage for quite some time now and I believe with M they even said that they are doing full restores including the APK. The real issue as I understand it is that developers haven't taken advantage of all the services available to them.

harel2• 11 years ago

This is quite presumptuous of them. I find iOS a bit backwards and unintuitive compare to Android, not to mention I find their practices the worst of all evils (and I'm far from being an ideologist).

StavrosK3• 11 years ago

Me too, but I don't see this as presumptuous at all. They're trying to make it easy for people who want to migrate from Android. Who can blame them?

ctolsen• 11 years ago

Those who might want to migrate the other way, perhaps.

MCRed9• 11 years ago

You're not far at all, you're exactly being an ideologist.

If you look at Apple's practices you can't find a single one that google doesn't emulate.

BTW, the restrictions on the App Store? They are there on the Play store as well.

The ability to develop Apps and run them on any device outside the store-- Has been on the iPhone since day one. Back when google was making blackberry clones you could release iPhone apps on the web (built using a Javascript/HTML/CSS platform, that web developers claim is the best anyway with hooks into the iOS API and phone capabilities).... but people hated it.

People here on Hacker News screamed bloody murder because they wanted native access to the hardware on iOS. So, Apple built it and the App Store. but they never got rid of the prior web based SDK and it's still there. You can build apps, install them on users phones and completely bypass the App Store.

But you ideologists just ignore that because you want to bash the App Store.

Best case you're think we'll believe you're not biased. Worst case, you're deluding yourself.

Neither choice is a good one.

harel2• 11 years ago

I was talking about Apple this time. If we were talking about Android, I'd say the same thing. Me not seeing myself as an ideologist means that ideology is not what drives me to use Google or Apple - just pure aesthetics. I would gladly use Apple products if I found them aesthetically pleasing or technologically advanced above anything else. Same goes for any other product or way of life. In other words, I rather not let ideology dictate my life as its restricting. I prefer to deal with things on a case by case basis.

desdiv• 11 years ago

"Android has many problems and is far from perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our users in, to prevent them from leaving us."

MCRed9• 11 years ago

Neither has Apple. Remember it was Apple that forced the music industry to go from DRM encumbered music to DRM free, etc. etc.

The Evil Apple mythology is pure political ideology on the part of Apple haters / Google Zealots.

And I've been hearing this kind of Apple bashing since the 1980s.

Yes, yes, Apple sells more expensive stuff. Apple focuses on design. Apple doesn't compete in the low end (though they are damn price competitive when you compare like systems.)

This does not make Apple evil. The idea that Android is "open" simply because linux is an open source operating system is silly- Darwin is open source as well, and Apple and Google both keep the application layer closed source.

All those knockoff phones sold in China that you're desperate to count as "Android" to claim Apple's losing (Yet nobody ever actually counts real sales of android devices, because android phone makers keep this data secret, unlike Apple that reports it quarterly to the SEC...why is that I wonder? Maybe the illusion that Android is "winning" would be shattered, hmmm? Meanwhile only %8 of "android" devices are running a current operating system???!? How is that "Winning"?)..... those knock off MediaTec phones are not "Android" and are not running google Apps (unless they've been cracked) because google has just as stringent licensing terms as Apple, actually much worse. And of course those apps are not open source either.

ikt2• 11 years ago

The idea that Android is "open" simply because linux is an open source operating system is silly- Darwin is open source as well, and Apple and Google both keep the application layer closed source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29

"On July 25, 2006, the OpenDarwin team announced that the project was shutting down, as they felt OpenDarwin had "become a mere hosting facility for Mac OS X related projects," and that the efforts to create a standalone Darwin operating system had failed. They also state: "Availability of sources, interaction with Apple representatives, difficulty building and tracking sources, and a lack of interest from the community have all contributed to this."[24] "

Darwin is open source, but to compare that to linux is laughable. Google is one of the top contributers upstream to Linux and subsequntly hundreds of millions of devices are better off because of it.

I'm unaware of any modern darwin based distro's and I'm unaware of any iOS mods like Cyanagenmod. To say Apple and Google are about the same when it comes to Open Source is a joke. Based on Steve Jobs stopping all donations to charity I'm fairly certain the fact that Darwin is open source is because the licensing requires it to be. Otherwise Darwin would be proprietary so fast no one would notice because it's too difficult to work with anyway.

weavie• 11 years ago

Is it really an amazing thing that you can recycle your Android device for free? I wonder what they do with them..

ansible• 11 years ago

A less wasteful solution is to completely wipe your phone and then sell it. But cheap, used Android phones on the market is not congruent with Apple's goals.

M8• 11 years ago

It's funny how they are trying to suggest that getting same apps isn't going to be a problem :).

minot• 11 years ago

Yeah, it would be newsworthy if Apple stomached the cost of paid apps for people who move from android to iOS.

I mean they'd only have to pay 0.7x the cost of the apps, if that.

And your paid apps are added to your iTunes Wish List.

Oh how convenient!

I wonder if they will allow an app that lets people migrate from iOS to something else on their app store. The reality distortion field at Cupertino remains strong.

svarrall• 11 years ago

I've always thought someone should do this. Would have though MS, BB or Samsung would have more to gain than Apple, but the result would have to worth the cost?

However my anecdotal evidence is that having paid for apps on one platform isn't a barrier to switching for a lot of people. It seems to be an afterthought, a realisation only when they come to download (and pay) for the app again. By that point its too late.

emirozer• 11 years ago

Is there any reason for google to allow this in their play store ? Serious question here, i cannot think of apple allowing the same kind of an app for google in app store...

hellotimmutton• 11 years ago

I wouldn't blame google for blocking this unless Apple allowed them to build a similar app for moving data the opposite direction

Nullabillity3• 11 years ago

Well, contrary to on iOS, Apple could just distribute the APK themselves. Which, of course, demonstrates why you shouldn't use the tool to begin with.

MCRed9• 11 years ago

You notice Google maps, that failure of an Application, is available on the App Store, along with Google Now, Google Earth and lots of other apps from Google.

The idea that Apple won't let google applications on their store is just google zealot paranoid fantasy.

Hell, Apple's bringing Apple Music to android. It's treating it like a real platform.

ikt2• 11 years ago

You notice Google maps, that failure of an Application

"Google Maps for mobile is the world's most popular app for smartphones, with over 54% of global smartphone owners using it at least once during the month of August 2013.[3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps

I think your bias might be showing?

pornel2• 11 years ago

It looks like a better experience than moving to a new Android device.

Google only copies system settings and list of installed apps, but not "sd card" data with local music, photos, apps' settings or data.

Nullabillity3• 11 years ago

You don't need to transfer photos, because they're automatically uploaded to Google Photos ASAP.

You don't need to transfer music if you're using Google Play Music (including the option to upload your own music), Spotify (has a similar options), or something else like that.

I'll give you application settings, but that's only because the applications didn't bother implementing the backup services.

mattlutze2• 11 years ago

Why on Earth should I have to use Google Photos or Google Play Music if I want to move content to a new phone? That would be quite the definition of lock-in, particularly when what we're talking about is moving non-system files.

threeseed5• 11 years ago

Your solution is a bit ridiculous. Worldwide upload speeds are typically a tiny fraction of download speeds so you would wasting huge amounts of time for something that should be simple.

Case in point it took me a month to upload my music to iTunes Match (and it already has fingerprinting).

pornel2• 11 years ago

Not using local storage (and compromising on privacy, features and availability) isn't a satisfactory solution for inability to easily migrate local storage.

It looks like Google either doesn't care or deliberately cripples experience for users who don't go all-in on all their services (given that Maps explicitly refuses to save recent searches locally I'm think it's the latter).

I've migrated from Nexus 4 to 5 and it was a mess (Google Play is full of dodgy and incomplete 3rd party backup apps. Android File Transfer is slow and leaves partial copies behind when any error happens, and errors happen often, etc.)

soylentcola• 11 years ago

I feel like photos, videos, and music are the easiest things to transfer. Just plug the phone into your (or any) computer, copy the photo/video/music folders, and then dump them on the new device if you don't want to use one of Google's upload/download services.

Simple read access to the contents of an Android device was always one of the big "pluses" in my experience. Then if you find that too difficult for whatever reason, there are Google apps that do the same thing. The only bits that can be annoying are app settings as you mentioned. Even that has improved and I notice a lot of that stuff showing up when I sign into a new device. Still, I hope to see some improvement on that front in the future. Third party migration apps (like the one on my Moto X) can do it so Google should definitely offer something similar. It currently works for some settings/data but I'd hope they're working on adding support for more.

ac29• 11 years ago

Google only copies system settings and list of installed apps, but not "sd card" data with local music, photos, apps' settings or data.

Automatic app settings backup (to google drive) is finally coming to Android M [0]. Third party solutions have existed more or less forever, though the best ones require root. For the local music/photos stuff, is it really that hard to plug both phones into a computer and transfer stuff that way? It would take maybe an hour.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-m-makes-anoth...

raz32dust• 11 years ago

Migrating data from an android phone to an iPhone might now be easier than migrating from an android to another. I haven't come across any free, play store app that can seamlessly transfer data between android phones of different makes.

jon-wood• 11 years ago

Motorola's devices all come with Motorola Migrate[1], which supports transferring data from both Android, iOS, and some older devices. The times I've used it I was pretty impressed by how smooth they made everything, although I was going Android-Android, I don't know what caveats there are for iOS migrations.

https://www.motorola.com/us/motorola-migrate/motorola-migrat...

bane4• 11 years ago

It's surprisingly not too hard. I just set up an ftp server on both phones and copy the data between them from my computer. Or setup the server on one and a client on the other and just go phone to phone directly.

ekianjo2• 11 years ago

What kind of ugly Android phone is used on the left?

MCRed9• 11 years ago

Isn't that an HTC One?

ekianjo2• 11 years ago

They probably chose it on purpose to make Android look dated. If they had used a Samsung phone it would not have looked like a old chunk of metal.

bane4• 11 years ago

The timing of this is pretty interesting. Apple's been able to make such a tool for years, but the trend has clearly been iOS -> Android for a while. Now that they're finally offering devices in sizes people want (literally 80% of the new iPhones I see are the 6+), people who wanted the bigger devices but went to Android, are finally seeing a reason to switch back. Furthermore, iOS is finally in good shape compared to Android w/r to features like notifications, multitasking, etc. making the idea of migration parity simpler.

I don't think this will have a huge impact in conversions, I think the path Apple is on is already doing that, but it's not a terrible idea.

JimmaDaRustla• 11 years ago

"Recycle your Android Phone"

Well, that's quite petty insinuating that the Android device is essentially garbage.

Android Migration

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