There's no straightforward way to migrate between an iPhone and Android so you'd spend a lot of time. Also I'm not sure if it's even possible to fully move over - for example would you be able to export your iMessages? Also, if you're fully bought into the ecosystem with Airpods and a Watch, you'd be better off replacing those (at least the watch which turns into a paperweight without an iPhone).

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Melatonic 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Personally I don't care if old messages migrate from one phone to the other (can always boot up the old phone if necessary). I sync all my contacts to my Google account which can easily be added on Android or iPhone. So far works great !

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killingtime74 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've migrated back and forth. Most things are backup to cloud now. Only thing missing was Signal messages last time and I think they now fixed that. Do people still use plain SMS now?

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acoustics 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

iMessage is extraordinarily popular in the US. Its userbase dwarfs Signal by over an order of magnitude

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killingtime74 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Ah fair enough. Not as many use it here in Australia

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yzydserd 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Is there data behind that or is it just anecdata?

A year ago someone on HN said “I can confirm that iMessage is extremely common in Australia. WhatsApp is very uncommon, outside of people with European (and maybe South American?) friends or family to keep in touch with.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39365562

My guess is you’re both expressing truths of your individual social circles but making unjustified extrapolations to an entire nation.

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killingtime74 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's true . The only stats I could find are unreliable SMS marketing company ones.

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dboreham 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

iMessage is very popular in the US but 90% of users just think they are "texting". There's no other way to send an SMS for them.

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realusername 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can also confirmed that iMessage is basically unused in France. (And that was a core argument in the EU of Apple against the DMA for iMessage, so even Apple admits its low usage in the EU)

The issue with iMessage outside the US is the branding, it's branded as an SMS app and SMS being dead (outside of ads and delivery drivers) doesn't help for adoption.

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immibis 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

iMessage is popular in the US because everyone has an iPhone because everyone has iMessage and everyone connects it to social status - network effects. The same reason (besides the social status) everyone uses WhatsApp in Europe.

This has more to do with the way the iPhone was launched, and the American desire to own the most expensive product, than any technical merits.

	▲	Melatonic 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They've also finally added RCS support so while you still get "green bubbles" you mostly avoid SMS

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riffraff 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How about photos? Moving from android's Google photo integration to apples icloud photos integration seems.. complicated

	▲	Melatonic 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		My solution was to use both - they behave a bit differently and I figure it can't hurt to get two sets of backups (I do also get iCloud for free though). Google photos is definitely easier to export and backup to my windows PC although Apple does provide a half decent iCloud client now for windows. It's a bit janky and took awhile for me to get a proper pipeline (you can accidently delete your cloud copy by doing the wrong thing). One thing I really miss about Android was the ability to just plug in via USB-C to any computer and backup all the photos (and then remove them from the local phone). Google Photos would retain its full quality copy this way and I would free up phone space and have a full quality copy on my local machine (plus local external drive). Try this on an iPhone and it's slow as hell (even though it has USB-C), often fails partway through a large copy, and when you delete the photos locally I believe iCloud deletes their copy as well (even if you have plenty of cloud storage). I understand it's a "sync" tool technically but there's really no reason for it to be restricted in this way.
	▲	vladvasiliu 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I don't know how to take pictures out of Google photo, but it's very easy to move outside photos into Apple Photos. I do this quite often since I'm a Sunday photographer and wrangle my images in Lightroom Classic on a Windows box. If you have an iCloud subscription, you can do this directly with a browser, just click upload and wait for it to happen. There's also a Windows client for iCloud, but I've never tried it.
	▲	freehorse 11 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Use third party, cross platform software like ente and you have no problem moving to or from any platform. Use platform dependent services and you get locked in. It is very simple, actually.
	▲	hawaiianbrah 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I’m on iOS and backup my photos to both iCloud and google photos
	▲	killingtime74 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I've always been on Google only so that helps a bit. It works to backup on iPhone as well

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freehorse 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s only if you are deep into one ecosystem or the other, or you don’t want to start with a clean state. Taking the time to move some basic apps and install the rest in time as you need them does not take much.