Apple’s other Android app will help you switch to iOS, “recycle” your Android for free

Besides the Apple Music app coming this fall to Android and other platforms, Apple will release at least one other app for Google’s mobile operating system – Move to iOS.

As the name implies, the app will help users make the jump from an Android phone to iPhone, by transferring contacts, messages, photos, bookmarks, mail accounts, and DRM-free media. The app, expected to launch along iOS 9 towards the end of the year, will even scan your device for installed apps and recommend you download them on your iOS device (if they are free) or add them to your wish list (if they are paid).

After the transfer is completed, Apple recommends users to “recycle” their Android phone “for free” at any Apple Store. That’s a slightly insolent proposition, but the injury may be greater than the insult, should naïve users fall for it. After all, even if you can’t find a buyer for your old Android phone, you could still keep it and find some great uses for it. That would still be a better deal than getting it recycled “for free,” as Apple so generously offers.

Move to iOS is featured on Apple’s iOS9 preview page, though unsurprisingly Tim Cook and company did not mention it on stage during the WWDC keynote yesterday.

Two things stand out here.

First, the mere fact that Move to iOS exists speaks about the immense pressure that Google’s platform is applying on Apple. While the Cupertino company recouped some of the lost ground with the release of the big screen iPhone 6, Android is still king, with a global share of around 80 percent. Like it or not, Apple has to work to convince Android users to switch, something that would’ve been hard to imagine just a few years ago.

Second, the existence of Move to iOS is a good example of why so many people prefer Android. A similar app made by, say, Samsung, would never be allowed in the App Store, where even a single mention of the term “Android” in an app screenshot is grounds for rejection.