How Can I Transfer My iPhone 4S data over to Galaxy S4?

John55455 said:

Title. I was considering the iPhone 5 but the Samsung Galaxy S4 features amazed me. The one downside of course is getting out of the ecosystem.

Obviosly I cant transfer the apps. But how about Apples iTunes copyright protected movies and music? And is there a way to get my contacts, bookmarks, notes, and calender off the iPhone and onto the GS4?

After all Apple computers, iPhones 1-4s, and 2 iPads - I'm trying out Android. Any thing I should know when switching?

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You can download Google Music to transfer all of your DRM free songs, which are any songs you bought for $1.29. The 99 cent songs will not transfer I don't believe but maybe someone can correct me on that.

As for the contacts and such, I thought I read somewhere that Samsung was releasing some sort of service to transfer all of that stuff.

Depending on how well you catch on to stuff, it can be easy or take some getting use to. It took me about a week to figure everything out but once I got use to it, I could breeze through Android. I haven't used Android in 2 years though, so things might have changed a bit.

About the music thing: I have had an iPhone with $1.29 and 99 cent songs, and when I switched to Android, all the songs loaded on the phone perfectly, so I can tell you firsthand that is not an issue.

The price of the songs isn't the issue. It's when you bought them. If you bought them before apple went DRM free they probably won't work. As for contacts, notes etc. There's apps that can sync them over. The nice thing about Googles ecosystem is that it's platform agnostic. So you calendars, contacts etc. will show up on all of your devices, iOS and Android and not just android.

What exactly does the galaxy s4 have that you can't do with an iPhone?

John55455 said:

And is there a way to get my contacts, bookmarks, notes, and calender off the iPhone and onto the GS4?

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Are you not already syncing contacts and calendar? If not, now's a good time to start. Then you only need to set up the account on the new device instead of migrating that data every time.

If you have a bunch of DRM music through iTunes and want to stay legal, get iTunes Match for the year. It's $25, but it should allow you to then download all of that music DRM free. Just a suggestion since people have been mentioning all this drm stuff.

As fat as contacts, just sync them with google. It's pretty easy to do. Tutorials all over the web for it. I recommend google contacts whether you use an iPhone or not. Easiest way to get contacts onto every other ecosystem imaginable. Only google makes it that easy. Everyone else wants to keep it to their own.

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Looon said:

What exactly does the galaxy s4 have that you can't do with an iPhone?

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There is nothing you can't do, but there are things it does differently. Of course there is the larger and higher resolution screen too.

I too am thinking of moving on to an S4 for several reasons including just wanting to try something different. Larger screen is the biggest big draw (for me) and I liked my cousin's S3 a lot. Difficult to consider and give up convenience of iphone facetime with my kids and mother in Spain and all my apps in the iTunes ecosystem. That is biggest drawback for me. I have an iPad but that is not something I can slip in my pocket...

Here is a little tutorial on switching to android from iphone:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/m...iphone-android-guide-moving-from-ios-android/

Pretty sure you could use Samsung's Smart Sync.

Aiding and abetting the enemy!

B4r u go into the whole trouble, seriously play with it and if ur still want to jump after a couple of weeks, OK.

Mrbobb said:

Aiding and abetting the enemy!

B4r u go into the whole trouble, seriously play with it and if ur still want to jump after a couple of weeks, OK.

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A lot of people who make the switch go back once they realize playing with your background and changing widgets a thousand times gets old after about a month

Looon said:

A lot of people who make the switch go back once they realize playing with your background and changing widgets a thousand times gets old after about a month

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Same can be said about other ecosystems. And it happens every day. I promise.

John55455 said:

Title. I was considering the iPhone 5 but the Samsung Galaxy S4 features amazed me. The one downside of course is getting out of the ecosystem.

Obviosly I cant transfer the apps. But how about Apples iTunes copyright protected movies and music? And is there a way to get my contacts, bookmarks, notes, and calender off the iPhone and onto the GS4?

After all Apple computers, iPhones 1-4s, and 2 iPads - I'm trying out Android. Any thing I should know when switching?

Click to expand...

As suggested above, subscribe to iTunes Match and redownload any DRM-protected music. No music sold on iTunes in the last several years is DRM protected. Then install Google Play Music Sync on your Mac and allow it to upload all your music to your Google Play account (free). Your music will then be available via the Google Play Music app on your Android phone (and it can download individual songs or playlists to your phone to play offline).

Movies on the other hand is a problem. I'm not sure of any good way to remove the DRM from movies purchased from the iTunes Store. For movies from the iTunes Store, your pretty much SOL. Non-DRM movies of course will play just fine. Movies purchased via Google Play of course are stuck with a similar DRM that wont play on anything else, either.

For bookmarks, install Chrome on your Mac, import your Safari bookmarks, then allow it to merge with your Google account.

For Address Book and iCal, you can export your contacts and appointments and import them to Google Contacts and Google Calendar. On your Mac and other iOS devices, set up your calendar and addresses (and email) via Google instead of iCloud. There's instructions on Google's site.

Looon said:

A lot of people who make the switch go back once they realize playing with your background and changing widgets a thousand times gets old after about a month

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Yeah. So just imagine how bored will someone get after a month using a mobile OS without widgets and other stuff.

You'd get bored of iOS even sooner than Android mate.

I burned all my songs that were DRM protected onto CD and them imported them again via iTunes as ordinary mp3s, worked a treat, bit of a pain if you've got 1000s though lol...

TacticalDesire said:

The price of the songs isn't the issue. It's when you bought them. If you bought them before apple went DRM free they probably won't work. As for contacts, notes etc. There's apps that can sync them over. The nice thing about Googles ecosystem is that it's platform agnostic. So you calendars, contacts etc. will show up on all of your devices, iOS and Android and not just android.

Click to expand...

Also, if you have iTunes Match and deleted all your DRM protected songs purchased in iTunes that were DRM protected from years ago, you can download them now and they are all DRM free. I did that will every song I purchased that was originally not iTunes +. Those sings will now copy over.

Looon said:

What exactly does the galaxy s4 have that you can't do with an iPhone?

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A big screen, SD card slot, removable battery. Need more?

Looon said:

What exactly does the galaxy s4 have that you can't do with an iPhone?

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Does it matter? If he wants to go to android, he is well within his rights to do so.

naths said:

I burned all my songs that were DRM protected onto CD and them imported them again via iTunes as ordinary mp3s, worked a treat, bit of a pain if you've got 1000s though lol...

Click to expand...

However, quality suffers.

Toadkillerdog said:

Difficult to consider and give up convenience of iphone facetime with my kids and mother in Spain and all my apps in the iTunes ecosystem. That is biggest drawback for me. I have an iPad but that is not something I can slip in my pocket...

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I'm feeling the same way. I'm a long time iPhone user and the s4 sounds awesome. I've had a few androids and they weren't bad but lagged and so on that really bugged me, but I think android has come a long way (latest I had was 2.x). I'm guessing there are apps that'll allow text/video chat between the two devices?

A newer experience doesn't mean better.....

And the S4 'features' are just gimmicks and you're being brainwashed by advertising. There is no way I've ever thought of hovering my finger over a phone, waving at a phone to answer a call in a public place (as seen in advert) Plus these 'features' are Samsung specific apps.

I urge you to try for a few weeks before committing yourself to a 2 year plan. I'm recently out a 2 year plan with android and now returned to the iPhone...

The grass isn't always greener.....

In any case, it's up to him to try the experience and see what works. None of us can say for sure if he'll be bored or not or if he'll love the experience.

If he does? That's his prerogative.


Unfortunately, the OP's iTunes-bought videos are likely not going to transfer well. Movie/TV distributors have not bought into the idea of non-DRM'ed content yet, so short of cracking those videos somehow, he's not going to be able to transfer them to a new ecosystem easily.

Toadkillerdog said:

I too am thinking of moving on to an S4 for several reasons including just wanting to try something different. Larger screen is the biggest big draw (for me) and I liked my cousin's S3 a lot. Difficult to consider and give up convenience of iphone facetime with my kids and mother in Spain and all my apps in the iTunes ecosystem. That is biggest drawback for me. I have an iPad but that is not something I can slip in my pocket...

Here is a little tutorial on switching to android from iphone:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/m...iphone-android-guide-moving-from-ios-android/

Click to expand...

interesting, I have the Galaxy S2 and I am waiting for my contract to expire in November at which time I will make the switch to an iPhone. Its funny how our buying habits change. One downside to Android for me is it takes for ever for software updates. You might want to consider that very carefully -read here. Apple's (IOS) iPhone, iPod and iPad don't have that problem.

IGregory said:

interesting, I have the Galaxy S2 and I am waiting for my contract to expire in November at which time I will make the switch to an iPhone. Its funny how our buying habits change. One downside to Android for me is it takes for ever for software updates. You might want to consider that very carefully -read here. Apple's (IOS) iPhone, iPod and iPad don't have that problem.

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...and neither do Nexus devices.

n1pabs said:

A newer experience doesn't mean better.....

And the S4 'features' are just gimmicks and you're being brainwashed by advertising. There is no way I've ever thought of hovering my finger over a phone, waving at a phone to answer a call in a public place (as seen in advert) Plus these 'features' are Samsung specific apps.

I urge you to try for a few weeks before committing yourself to a 2 year plan. I'm recently out a 2 year plan with android and now returned to the iPhone...

The grass isn't always greener.....

Click to expand...

LOL a apple dude saying the android dude is brainwashed