# Can I back up iphone data to be transferred to Android phone?



## bj nick (Jun 10, 1999)

I will soon be in the market for a new smartphone....I have an iphone 3gs and love it, but I don't want to cross anything off....I'd like to keep my options open. My iphone was just fixed, but you never know; it could go bad again....can I back up the data in the phone so that it could be transferred right to a new Android if/when I get one? I just had a scare where the phone went dead and the battery and charging port both had to be replaced....this is after the apple store told me it was dead and not worth fixing. 

Thanks!


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

What kind of data are you referring to? E-mail? What type of account do you use? Contacts? Where are they stored? Pictures?

Android phones connect to Google accounts. If you use anything else for e-mail, contacts, and calendar, then you'll have to do some manual exporting / importing.

Pictures are just data files. You'd have to copy them off the iPhone and onto the Android phone.

The biggest change you'd face is with applications. Obviously *none* of your iPhone applications will work on an Android phone. Everything has to be re-purchased and re-installed on the new platform if it's even available at all.


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## bj nick (Jun 10, 1999)

Hi, not talking about photos or music or anything like that. All of that is easily downloadable from my HD. Talking about contacts, addresses, etc. The kind of stuff where no one on Earth would want to sit there and manually enter 397 phone numbers......I'm confused, because I know people switch phones; I can't believe all those people would go through such an incredible hassle......the guy at A T and T said that if my phone is "live," they can transfer data to an Android phone easily.....but since the iphone was "dead" (temporarily, it luckily turned out), they couldn't help me, as no contacts are stored on the SIM card....

Apps, etc, I get it. There would definitely be a "set-up" period of getting re-established with everything before I was fully productive and comfortable. But I hate to think I'm "trapped" with the iPhone, even though it's a wonderful piece of machinery......


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

I don't know how the iPhone stores contacts. I would hope you're backing up to iTunes and there's be some way to export them from there.

Wireless providers have devices and software to transfer contacts from any type of phone to any type of phone. 

Android phones use Google accounts, so everything is automatically synced. If you get another Android phone, you just link it to that same account, and everything is restored. It's pretty simple and straight-forward. Moving between two completely different and separate ecosystems is bound to be more complicated.


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## bj nick (Jun 10, 1999)

Thanks for your response. I agree, much simpler to stay within the same system. Yeah, I back up to my HD, to the cloud, etc. Not to Google. Probably better to stick to the iphone, but I do love those big Android screens....and some of the features......I would just like to have the choice, you know? Not have it be two weeks of work to get re-set up.


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

Look in iTunes and see how you're storing contacts. There's probably a way to export them, and then you'd have to import them into a Google account.

There's no way around spending some time moving from one system to another. If you have a lot of apps for your iPhone, you lose all of that going over to Android. That's usually the biggest reason people stick with one platform over another.

Of course you have the choice to use whatever phone you want. Just realize it takes some time and effort (an probably money) to make the change.


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## bj nick (Jun 10, 1999)

Agreed: no free lunch. One has to weigh all the pros and cons. Apps- wise, I don't think anything I rely on is exclusive to iphone: calendar, voice memos, gps, notes, etc, etc, etc, are all common for both systems. Ubiquitous, really. But yeah, I'd have to figure some things out.

I will check out what you say and research it a little....thanks! 

and fwiw: that iphone 4s is a beautiful thing....not the worst thing in the world to "have to" move up to that.


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