Switching from iPhone to S7, anything I should be aware of?

[AC Question]

Switching from iPhone to S7

I am planning on switching from my iP6 to a GS7 and I'd like to know what's the best software out there to make a transfer of my information. I'd like to get my contacts, messages and media to transfer. I know some providers have a device that does it but I keep hearing they only do contacts.

Also is there anything i should be aware of as a long time iPhone user? any Challenges?

 

[Feldon]

Re: Switching from iPhone to S7

I had an iPhone 3GS, 4, and 5. I switched to the Samsung Galaxy S5 and have had mixed experiences. It got so bad that I had to do a full backup and factory reset but now my phone runs reasonably well.

Samsung Smart Switch by far is the best migration app. You give it your iCloud credentials and it logs in and downloads everything for you.

Notes:

• Make sure you opt out your iPhone from iMessage before switching. Otherwise people will send you iMessages that you never receive.
• Downloaded apps go to the "App Drawer". You have to pull icons out of there and put them on your home screen. On the plus side, you will have access to Widgets.

Some tips:

• The default home screen on Samsung phones is Touchwiz, which sucks. Download Nova Launcher.
• The default text message app on Samsung phones is Messenger, which sucks. Download Textra.
• The default keyboard input app on Samsung phones sucks. Download Swype.
• The default voice recognition app on Samsung phones is S-Voice. It sucks. Disable it and use Google Now instead.
• The default text-to-speech voice, at least on my S5, sounded like a 2 pack-a-day smoker speaking from the bottom of a well. I downloaded the Google voice instead.
• You'll miss being able to swipe left to go "Back" in apps. There's a dedicated Back button instead.
• By default, the lower left button is set to some useless junk. You can change it a list of Running Tasks.

Gotchas:

• Samsung is not a pure Android experience. Samsung makes many modifications to the Android OS, specifically something called "TouchWiz" which changes the behavior of a broad spectrum of things, especially the launchpad. It also tends to be laggy. You can replace the TouchWiz Launcher with something better like Nova, but you cannot completely eliminate TouchWiz on a carrier phone.

• If you buy an AT&T or Verizon-branded Samsung phone, expect 8-12 month delays for software updates. On iPhone, when Apple decides to release a software update, there is nothing the carriers can do to stop it. In the Android world, carrier phones are held hostage by the carrier, who loads them up with GBs of unremovable crapware, and holds up updates for countless reasons, including that they'd rather you buy one of their new phones.

• Android 5.1.1 came out in March of last year. Verizon still hasn't gotten it a year later. AT&T finally got it last October. To work around this problem, you can buy carrier unlocked international versions of the Samsung Galaxy phones, but then you have to pay the full sticker price up front, rather than the monthly charge your carrier would. Also, these won't work on Verizon.

• Believe it or not, there is no comprehensive Backup solution for Android. Samsung Smart Switch is a good start, but I also strongly recommend SMS Backup and Restore, Titanium, and copying your photos directly. Also, the location of the icons on your homescreens aren't backed up by any app I've found. You'll want to take screenshots.

• No "Undo" command in most apps. Mind-boggling but true. You can wipe out a document and there's no way to get it back. iPhone has universally supported "shake to undo" almost since day one.

• Facebook for Android is an unbelievable battery hog. I use http://m.facebook.com/ instead. With notifications enabled, messages all come through with no problem.

• When it comes to Background Applications, Android is like the Wild West. Apps can run rampant in the background, eating up all your battery life. iPhone "just works". Android is for tinkerers and micromanagers.

In summary, I'd seriously consider getting a Nexus phone, such as the Nexus 5X or 6P. Yes you are paying outright for the phone and the specs aren't quite as powerful as the S7, but at least the phone is an official Google phone and thus will get very fast updates since it is a pure Android experience. You won't have gigs of carrier bloatware to contend with either.

 

[caveman84]

Well i thought id finally come back to android with galaxy s7 and it has been nothing but disappointment. First, a device with 4gb of ram only has 700mb free whereas my nexus 6 with 3gb has 1.5 free at all times and iphpne 6s with only 2gb runs circles around s7. Second, the battery, for a device with 3000mah battery barely lasts a day and android system is the biggest user with all the bloat that cannot be removed or some cannot be even disabled. Also, device is alway warm no matter what you do.

Overall im pretty disappointed. Its 2016 and samsung still cant put out a non note device that is decent to save their lives. Ive been there with s4,s5 and s6. All were pretty disappointing. I thought maybe this time samsung will get it right but yet again i was let down.

 

[GadgetGator]

Re: Switching from iPhone to S7

I had an iPhone 3GS, 4, and 5. I switched to the Samsung Galaxy S5 and have had mixed experiences. It got so bad that I had to do a full backup and factory reset but now my phone runs reasonably well.

Samsung Smart Switch by far is the best migration app. You give it your iCloud credentials and it logs in and downloads everything for you.

Notes:

• Make sure you opt out your iPhone from iMessage before switching. Otherwise people will send you iMessages that you never receive.
• Downloaded apps go to the "App Drawer". You have to pull icons out of there and put them on your home screen. On the plus side, you will have access to Widgets.

Some tips:

• The default home screen on Samsung phones is Touchwiz, which sucks. Download Nova Launcher.
• The default text message app on Samsung phones is Messenger, which sucks. Download Textra.
• The default keyboard input app on Samsung phones sucks. Download Swype.
• The default voice recognition app on Samsung phones is S-Voice. It sucks. Disable it and use Google Now instead.
• The default text-to-speech voice, at least on my S5, sounded like a 2 pack-a-day smoker speaking from the bottom of a well. I downloaded the Google voice instead.
• You'll miss being able to swipe left to go "Back" in apps. There's a dedicated Back button instead.
• By default, the lower left button is set to some useless junk. You can change it a list of Running Tasks.

Gotchas:

• Samsung is not a pure Android experience. Samsung makes many modifications to the Android OS, specifically something called "TouchWiz" which changes the behavior of a broad spectrum of things, especially the launchpad. It also tends to be laggy. You can replace the TouchWiz Launcher with something better like Nova, but you cannot completely eliminate TouchWiz on a carrier phone.

• If you buy an AT&T or Verizon-branded Samsung phone, expect 8-12 month delays for software updates. On iPhone, when Apple decides to release a software update, there is nothing the carriers can do to stop it. In the Android world, carrier phones are held hostage by the carrier, who loads them up with GBs of unremovable crapware, and holds up updates for countless reasons, including that they'd rather you buy one of their new phones.

• Android 5.1.1 came out in March of last year. Verizon still hasn't gotten it a year later. AT&T finally got it last October. To work around this problem, you can buy carrier unlocked international versions of the Samsung Galaxy phones, but then you have to pay the full sticker price up front, rather than the monthly charge your carrier would. Also, these won't work on Verizon.

• Believe it or not, there is no comprehensive Backup solution for Android. Samsung Smart Switch is a good start, but I also strongly recommend SMS Backup and Restore, Titanium, and copying your photos directly. Also, the location of the icons on your homescreens aren't backed up by any app I've found. You'll want to take screenshots.

• No "Undo" command in most apps. Mind-boggling but true. You can wipe out a document and there's no way to get it back. iPhone has universally supported "shake to undo" almost since day one.

• Facebook for Android is an unbelievable battery hog. I use http://m.facebook.com/ instead. With notifications enabled, messages all come through with no problem.

• When it comes to Background Applications, Android is like the Wild West. Apps can run rampant in the background, eating up all your battery life. iPhone "just works". Android is for tinkerers and micromanagers.

In summary, I'd seriously consider getting a Nexus phone, such as the Nexus 5X or 6P. Yes you are paying outright for the phone and the specs aren't quite as powerful as the S7, but at least the phone is an official Google phone and thus will get very fast updates since it is a pure Android experience. You won't have gigs of carrier bloatware to contend with either.

I agree with a lot of those points but not all of them. Laggy? My S7 does not lag. Ever. Facebook a battery hog? Not on my phone. Samsung keyboard sucks? No, it's pretty good actually. I don't have a problem with the stock text message app either and like that it changes with the themes. I like it being more minimal actually. But the great thing about Android over Apple is that it can be made into whatever you want!

 

[GolpherZX]

I just made the switch from iPhone to the Galaxy S7 (which is the 4th Android phone after a total of 4 iPhones) this week. So far it is taking a little bit of getting use to some of the nuances that are related to the Android side of things (such as long press to paste text).

For contacts I recommend having them all in your Google account (contacts.google.com). After all you are using a Google OS, might as well have the contacts in the system.

Make sure you disable iMessage (https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage).

If you are on Verizon, I am a happy user of "Message+" which is a Verizon message app that is somewhat similar to iMessage in that they have apps for various devices (such as my Macbooks). So now I can text from any of my devices, including most of my iDevices.

The last thing is to explore around on the device, while being careful about what apps you install. Make sure you are installing reputable apps.

One extremely helpful item for me in an office setting is using the Tasker application to automatically mute my phone. I've been at plenty of meetings where Android devices are set to have a ring tone and that can be embarrassing / frowned upon. Now when my phone joins the wireless network at the office the ringers are muted. When I get in my car the phone opens my podcast (netcast) app. When I join my personal wifi network at home the volume is turned back on. Tasker allows things like that.

What do I miss?
- The volume / mute switch - taken care of by Tasker now.
- Some of the location awareness stuff - Glympse app will work for this.

What do I like?
- How quick the camera loads with double tap of the home button
- Google Now - its actually smart compared to Siri and the home screen
- Samsung pay - love using that at any magnetic card swipe since the phone generates the magnetic field
- 200 GB storage that I installed
- 5x5 icons all the way across - I haven't toyed with Nova yet, I plan on doing so soon.
- Control of the home screen to actually see my background image!

 

[GolpherZX]

Oh and for keyboard I highly recommend SwiftKey. It is a touch challenging on the punctuation marks, but I'll get used to that.

 

[GadgetGator]

Well i thought id finally come back to android with galaxy s7 and it has been nothing but disappointment. First, a device with 4gb of ram only has 700mb free whereas my nexus 6 with 3gb has 1.5 free at all times and iphpne 6s with only 2gb runs circles around s7. Second, the battery, for a device with 3000mah battery barely lasts a day and android system is the biggest user with all the bloat that cannot be removed or some cannot be even disabled. Also, device is alway warm no matter what you do.

Overall im pretty disappointed. Its 2016 and samsung still cant put out a non note device that is decent to save their lives. Ive been there with s4,s5 and s6. All were pretty disappointing. I thought maybe this time samsung will get it right but yet again i was let down.

So you have complaints about a phone that "barely last a day" and thus you'll stick with an iPhone? I know that iPhone isn't getting some massive battery life.

For me Samsung definitely got it right. So right that this is not only the first Samsung phone I have ever been interested in, it's the first one I bought. After many years and many phones that's pretty good. They finally got me as a customer. And I think the battery life is quite good. Gets me through more than a day and that's more than enough for me.

 

[caveman84]

So you have complaints about a phone that "barely last a day" and thus you'll stick with an iPhone? I know that iPhone isn't getting some massive battery life.

For me Samsung definitely got it right. So right that this is not only the first Samsung phone I have ever been interested in, it's the first one I bought. After many years and many phones that's pretty good. They finally got me as a customer. And I think the battery life is quite good. Gets me through more than a day and that's more than enough for me.

Iphone 6s plus actually, with 2800 mah lasts much longer than my galaxy s7. I have four lines on tmobile one isnt being used so i have s7 and 6s plus side by side, have been testing all week


I know this is a very touchy subject and im just posting MY observations. Dont call me a fanboy or anything else. Ive been using smartphones before people even knew what they were going all the way back to windows smartphone edition, pocket PC edition, Symbian s60. One the best devices that i will never forget was motorola mpx200. Ive had a full length movies on my phone while majority of people were rocking motorola V60 and LG chocolates of the world.

 

[GadgetGator]

Iphone 6s plus actually, with 2800 mah lasts much longer than my galaxy s7. I have four lines on tmobile one isnt being used so i have s7 and 6s plus side by side, have been testing all week


I know this is a very touchy subject and im just posting MY observations. Dont call me a fanboy or anything else. Ive been using smartphones before people even knew what they were going all the way back to windows smartphone edition, pocket PC edition, Symbian s60. One the best devices that i will never forget was motorola mpx200. Ive had a full length movies on my phone while majority of people were rocking motorola V60 and LG chocolates of the world.

How many hours do you get with the iphone?