I've been an iPhone user for the past 18 years or so.
While it wasn't my first smartphone (that honor goes to the HTC Touch HD; what a fun device), I've been using iPhones continuously since the iPhone 3G.
My Apple experience started with the first-generation iPod touch, however. If I remember correctly, it was my first Apple device, later followed by a white plastic MacBook.
Over time, I used basically every Apple product. To say I was in the Apple walled garden would be putting it lightly. From Apple Watch Ultra to multiple HomePods, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad Pro, and MacBook Pro, I own it all.
But a few months ago I switched away from macOS to Linux. And that seems to have opened the floodgates, because a bit over a week ago, I switched from an iPhone (16 Pro) to a Google Pixel 10.
And while this device started out as a two-month loaner from Google, let me tell you: I don't think I'm going back.
I am planning to make this into a weekly, diary-style series.
Over the next two months, I plan to write about:
- the hardware experience,
- what software I use,
- how I have customized Android,
- how I integrated it into my daily life,
- my thoughts on Google's AI push.
And finally, after the two months are over, I will answer the big question of whether I made the switch or not.
To kick off this series, I need to start at the very beginning of the journey. If I was going to leave the walled garden, I needed to make sure I wasn't leaving my data behind.
On the iPhone, my data lived in a few places. Since I moved over to Linux earlier this year, I started moving data out of iCloud Drive onto something else (I built my own tool with Syncthing and my home-server). My passwords have always lived in 1Password, I barely use iMessage (this is Europe, we're into WhatsApp), I use Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar, but my contacts are in iCloud.
I also still use Apple Music for now. I had a few app subscriptions running, used Apple's HomeKit for exactly one light, and naturally had a whole bunch of apps installed.
So while I didn't completely rely on Apple services for my digital life, the big one, pictures, was a problem waiting to be solved.
When you first boot into Android on the Pixel 10, it offers to move data over from an iPhone. I honestly didn't expect this to work correctly, but tested it anyway. The reason for my pessimism was that I couldn't expect Apple to make this easy, probably throwing obstacles in the way the whole time.
I was wrong. I'm not sure if this is because of pressure from the EU, if the Google engineers are geniuses, or if Apple has simply been kind at heart, but the transfer experience couldn't have been smoother.
The Pixel 10 was able to move nearly everything over. I may be missing some pictures that were not stored locally on the iPhone (though I honestly am not sure), so I did request a full data export, which took Apple several days to do. I received it, however, and have completely imported it into my immich installation, more on that in my next home-server post.
The part that surprised me the most was how the Pixel 10 was able to find most apps I had installed on my iPhone. I did not know that was possible. Of course, not all apps were downloaded, since some were iOS-only, and others, I guess, Google couldn't match, but it worked.
This surprised me a lot. Seriously! I dreaded that process, but about 90% of my apps were there, just waiting for me to set them up.
And as for all the other data, like contacts, the Pixel 10 pulled them all in, and then offered to clean them up (I had to merge some after realizing I never actually bothered to clean my contacts list over the past ten years or so; I didn't remember who some of these people were).
I have to give kudos to Google here. The official support video I embedded above might seem like it got some Google marketing dust sprinkled all over it, but the experience was as smooth as they make it sound. Sure, it took an hour or two, during which I couldn't use my phone, but that was the only inconvenience.
So, we're off to a good start!
