This is the 2nd part of my 2-part post series. Read part 1 here.

Not off to a great start #

Apple sent me a phone locked to AT&T and some number I didn't recognize. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple customer care trying various things, only for them to tell me I needed to exchange it.

I checked my order confirmation and it did say "Carrier: Connect on your own later", so this was a mistake on the Apple side. The representative was apologetic and confused by the situation.

I don't live in a big city and the nearest Apple Store is 1 hour and 20 minutes away. I ordered the phone via Apple.com and had it delivered because I didn't want to drive over 2 hours for this, but I regret that decision because I had to drive there in the end.

So I drove to the store and exchanged the phone, making sure to open the box in the store to confirm I didn't get another carrier locked phone. It was a very easy exchange process and I was out of the store in probably 15 minutes.

Everyone at the Apple store was very helpful and nice. Annoying that I had to drive there, but only a minor inconvenience in the end.

Setup time #

I turned on the iPhone and selected my language, country, etc. Pretty early on you get to the transfer from another phone option which asks you to open the Move to IOS app on your Android. I just followed the prompts on both phones, nothing special.

In the Move to iOS app I only selected the following items:

  • Messages
  • Contacts
  • Call History
  • Cellular Plan
  • WhatsApp Messages

At the beginning of the process I got a notice that my cellular plan could not be transferred so that was skipped. It might have something to do with the fact that I disabled data before I started the process, but not 100% sure about that, just a hunch.

I had read somewhere on reddit that I shouldn't let the phone display timeout during this process, so I increased my Android's screen timeout to 30 min, but I couldn't change the setting on the iPhone during the transfer process so I stood near the phone and kept tapping the screen. The display did turn off a couple times as I had to step away, but it had no negative effect, so maybe it didn't matter in the end.

The entire transfer process completed in about 12 minutes.

After it finished I continued with the setup process. It has me login into my Apple ID, there was no way to skip that. I did select "Set up later" for almost everything else (Siri, Apple Pay, etc).

SIM to eSIM transfer #

As I mentioned in part 1, my number was tied to a SIM card. Android and my Pixel phones have supported eSIMs for a while but it was not required, they all still had physical SIM card slots. iPhones in the U.S. have been eSIM only since iPhone 14.

After completing the setup and finally gaining access to the phone, I was ready to start the transfer following Apple's official guide.

What it seemed to do is first it converted my number from a SIM to an eSIM, then it transferred over that eSIM to the new iPhone. Overall it was a pretty seamless transfer.

Messages #

Both my text message history and Whatsapp history transferred over without any problems.

After the Move to iOS completed, it left the Whatsapp icon on my home screen. I tapped on it thinking it was the app but it told me I needed to install the app from the App Store, which I did, and then I followed whatever prompts it gave me to setup and verify, and it was all pretty smooth.

Duplicated Contacts #

This was the only real issue I encountered throughout the entire process. I regret selecting "contacts" when using the Move to iOS app because all my contacts seem to have been duplicated. Then, when I added my Google account and synced those contacts, I technically have them tripled, but at least they exist in a separate list.

I've heard that iOS can do some contact merging but it does it by automatic detection and then shows you the option to merge, which it hasn't for me yet, and there's no way to trigger it manually.

Since I'm coming from being an Android user for many years, I might just keep my contacts in Google and delete the ones in iCloud.

iCloud Storage #

Apple gives you 5GB of free storage and I'm already at almost 100% full. Most of that is taken up by 3.6GB of "iCloud Backup". I haven't even had this phone for a full 24 hours yet!

I think there's some kind of bug in the way that iCloud syncs because it was showing me that I had about 1.4GB of Messages in iCloud. I went into the Messages app and deleted close to 1000 messages, making sure to permanently delete them in the "Recently deleted" section. Then I went into the iCloud settings and tapped on "Sync now" just for "Messages in iCloud". Somehow that doubled the amount of space it was taking up. WTF is it doing?!

What I ended up doing is disabling sync for Messages in iCloud and deleted all of the Messages content in iCloud only. So now I just have them locally on my phone and nowhere else. I got a warning that iCloud keeps all data for recovery purposes up to 30 days. I'm going to wait until 31 days pass and turn back sync so that it only syncs a fresh new copy.

Tin foil hat time #

Apple products are usually high quality but I wonder if they are purposely not fixing these iCloud syncing issues because more data stored means more iCloud+ subscribers. which equals more money. There are an estimated 130 to 150 million iPhone users in the U.S. (source: I googled it, very legit). Imagine all of those paying $1/month for iCloud+, that's over $130 million of guaranteed profit per month. I know that's a drop in the bucket for them as they make billions monthly, but it's still profit.

Conclusion #

I did a lot of research, mostly on Reddit, before I even had the physical new iPhone in my hands and while it was good to know what people were having issues with, I don't think the advice I took from different threads were necessary in the end.

All I really needed to do was follow the prompts and official guides. Apple has done a good job of making it a seamless transition. I don't know why others were having so many issues. Maybe things have improved in the latest versions of iOS, Android, and the Move to iOS app, and I was just looking at some old Reddit threads. Or maybe it was because I was moving from a Pixel 8 phone, which runs stock Android, and not some Samsung, or other, Android variety.

My only advice for anyone else doing this is:

  • Don't include "Contacts" in the Move to iOS app. You will sync those later when you add your Google Account to iOS.
  • Don't include "Cellular Plan" either, you will set this up separately after the Move to iOS has completed.

iCloud is a scam to get you to pay for iCloud+ 😝.

Official Guides #

These are the only links you'll really need for this: