According to 9to5Google, the latest developer test built (Canary) of Android includes a new feature that should make it easier to switch between iPhone and Android devices. The corresponding feature on iPhones should roll out in a coming iOS 26 update.
We first wrote about this last year, when the EU was forcing Apple to make a number of concessions around how it locks customers into its products. One was the ability to completely remove Safari from iOS and let browsers use their own rendering engine (in the EU), but another, perhaps no longer EU-specific, was a feature to make it easier for iPhone and Android users to switch devices.
Google has an Android Switch app for iOS and Apple has a Move to iOS app on Android, but a clearer, easier, and more reliable method is needed. Apple and Google have been working together on a solution, and soon you’ll be presented with an option to move from your Android device or iPhone during the device setup process.
We don’t yet know what the feature looks like or how it works on either the iPhone or Android side. But the idea has always been to seamlessly move across the user’s core accounts, data like photos and videos, and bookmarks. It’s unclear if it will go further than that—switching from iPhone to Android or vice versa means moving passwords and passkeys, contents of a digital wallet, and more. The new method is said to provide support for transferring more data types between devices than the current transfer apps do.
Author: Jason Cross, Senior Editor, Macworld
Jason has written about technology for more than 25 years - first in the gaming press, then focusing on enthusiast PCs and general technology. He enjoys learning how complicated technology works and explaining it in a way anyone can understand.