Never very enthusiastic about the idea of seeing its customers migrate to the competition, Apple will still soon offer more useful tools to move froman iPhone has an Android phone.
The new European rules have not finished causing a stir at Apple. After the affair of commissions on third-party applications and the battle with Epic Games, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will now force the iPhone manufacturer to offer better tools for transferring its data to Android phones.
Soon easier data transfer
Indeed, the European text, which came into force on March 7, requires “access controllers” to offer data portability solutions and this is precisely what Apple is preparing at the moment. In a document detailing all the changes coming to the iPhone ecosystem, Apple gives some information on “a tool to help operating system developers provide more intuitive solutions for migrating data from an iPhone to a non-Apple phone“. The latter should arrive “late 2024/early 2025”.
Obviously, Android is never mentioned as such, but it is clearly Google’s OS which should benefit the most from such openness on the part of Apple. Currently, Google provides an application called “Switch to Android” which promises to repatriate your contacts, photos, videos and calendar items during a migration, but a lot of other data remains trapped in the ecosystem for the moment Apple.
The DMA, which guarantees in its article 6 “la effective portability of data provided by the end user or generated by the activity of the end user in the context of the use of the service» should, however, open up the data accessible more widely for competing operating systems. In the same document, Apple details a solution for migrating its data from Safari to other web browsers available on iPhone, which suggests new possibilities for data transfer, even beyond the iOS ecosystem.
Apple is dragging its feet against Europe
Moreover, in the same document, Apple specifies that it will soon be possible to simply uninstall the Safari browser if you prefer Firefox, Chrome or Opera. This possibility should arrive on iOS by the end of 2024, if we are to believe the company’s communication. On this, the company is treated in the same way as Microsoft which will also be forced to let Internet users delete the Edge browser on Windows if they wish.
If the iPhone manufacturer details all the new features coming to its mobile operating system, it does not forget to once again criticize the DMA which “opens new possibilities for malware, scams, the distribution of illegal and dangerous content as well as other security and privacy risks“. So if you had any doubt, no, Apple is still not happy about having to comply with European rules.
Source: Apple via The Verge
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