How to make the switch from Android to iPhone 4

iPhone 4 with its 960×640 retina display, easy-peasy FaceTime video calling, high quality 5mp back-illuminated camera that shoots 720p video, and the silky smoothness of iOS 4 convincing you to switch from Google’s Android to Apple? Worried about moving over your personal data like contacts, finding apps, getting used to the differences? Wondering where to find help?

Relax. You’re in the the right place. Follow along after the break for everything you need to know (more properly, everything the TiPb iPhone Forums have taught us) about switching from Android to iPhone 4 and iOS 4.

(And yes, we’ll have BlackBerry, webOS, and Windows Mobile switcher guides up later this week as well).

Android to iPhone, or there and back again

Maybe you used to have an iPhone but after several months the luster wore off and Google’s relentless march of new phones — Droid, Nexus One, Incredible, Evo 4G, Droid 2, Droid x, stop us any time! — got you itching to try life on the Android side? Maybe the previous lack of multitasking made you never want to try an iPhone to begin with? It doesn’t matter. The past is the past and this is about the future — your future with iPhone 4 and iOS 4. This is about getting you from Android to 100mph on the iPhone as fast as possible. Here’s where we start.

Moving over contacts, calendars, and email

Here’s the good news: if you’re using Android chances are you’re using Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts for your personal information, and those all work really well on the iPhone. You can set them up either as an Exchange account (which uses Google Sync’s ActiveSync license) to push everything straight from the mothership to your iPhone, or set it up as a Gmail account that uses IMAP.

Since iOS 4 can handle multiple ActiveSync accounts, that’s the way we recommend you go. Just tap the Settings icon on the Hone Screen, tap Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, choose Exchange, and enter your credentials. Google even has a help page [link] if you’re not sure just what exactly to put where.

About the only things you’ll miss — and we miss them too — is a more Gmail-like mail app. iPhone Mail is a great IMAP client but Gmail does things their own way, with threads and labels and stars. You’ll get threads, but the other two just aren’t there.

If it bothers you enough, you can load up gmail.com right in the Safari web browser. Google makes the best web apps in the business and they work great in Safari (which shares the same WebKit root as Google’s own Chrome). Once you’ve logged in to Gmail, Safari will ask you to cache a few megs of mail on your iPhone — HTML5 and SQLite power! — and then you’re good to go.

What to do about Google Voice and Google Navigation

YouTube and Google search are built right into the iPhone. Enjoy. Google Voice and Google Navigation… those are harder to replace.

Now, if you’re not in the US, you probably don’t have to worry about Google Voice since it’s not international yet, and Google Navigation is just starting to spread so you may not have to worry about that either. If you’re in the US and are a big Google Voice and Google Navigation user, here’s where things get sticky — Apple hasn’t allowed Google Voice into the App Store and Google hasn’t made Google Navigation for the iPhone yet.

It’s like when mom and dad fight and the kids suffer, right? There’s a couple alternatives you can check out for each, though none are ideal — and most aren’t free.

For Google Voice you can use Google’s own web app. It’s pretty good, though obviously more limited than a native app would be. There’re also 3rd party Google Voice web apps like Black Swan and rival services like Line2.

For Google Navigation, you have the much more limited Google Maps built in, which lacks turn by turn and voice directions but is free and useful in a pinch. There are a variety of cheap, crowd-sourced navigation apps as well. The cheap ones are a mixed bag. The crowd-sourced ones make us worry that Stephen Colbert’s viewers will one day move the Empire State Building to the Cleve just for lulz, but they’re worth checking out. Motion X GPS Drive is $0.99 right now, for example [iTunes]. If you prefer to navigate with the big boys, you can also find everything from TeleNav’s online maps in AT&T and Rogers Navigator to NAVIGON’s on-board maps in MobileNavigator, to TomTom which owns their own maps. They’re all great — but they come at a price.

And in iOS 4, navigation, VoIP, and — yes — streaming music Pandora or Slacker-style can all multitask away blissfully in the background.

Finding other apps (and games).

Sure Apple doesn’t allow endless keyboards, task killers, and pinup girls into the App Store, but there are 200,000 apps anyway and almost certainly any big ticket ones you’ve come to reply on in the Android Market are there, ready and waiting for download. There are also tons of games, from the casual farmers to full-on 3D FPS. TiPb reviews several a week and we’ve got a whole iPhone Apps and Games Forum ready to help you out as well.

Root meet Jailbreak

Forget the words root and ROM. Remember the words Jailbreak and Cydia. Okay, iPhone 4 probably won’t be Jailbroken (root jail broken open to allow side-loading of unsigned apps — if you don’t know what that means, skip this section) on launch day but it probably will eventually, maybe even soon. If you’re a diehard rooter, tweaker, and customizer, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled to our Jailbreak coverage, and more importantly — our Jailbreak Help Forum, and Jailbreak Apps, Games, and Themes Forum.

Say farewell to fracture

Seriously, you don’t have to worry much if at all about versions and hardware compatibility any more. With very few exception, iPhone apps past, present, and future will just work on your iPhone 4. Sure the screen is bigger but it’s exactly 4 times bigger at the same physical size so existing (pre-iOS 4) apps will look the same and new (post iOS 4) apps will, well frankly blow your mind.

Apple is all about user experience and they’re doing a lot of abstraction behind the scenes to make sure things look great in front of them. Enjoy.

Say hello to iTunes

A mixed blessing if ever there was one, iTunes runs okay on Mac, kludgy on Windows, but is the local sync client required to activate your iPhone 4 and to transfer large media and document files from your computer to your phone.

You can do a lot of things OTA (over the air), including syncing all your personal data via ActiveSync (including Google Sync) or MobileMe, download apps, and buy or rent iTunes music, TV shows, movies, podcasts, etc. (20MB or under over 3G, any size over Wi-Fi). You can find apps that let you access your Google Docs, DropBox, Box.net, and other online storage. You can even convert and stream content on the fly with apps like AirSharing [iTunes]. But at some point, be it to install a software update like iOS 4.1 (probably due this fall) or backup your data, you’re going to need to plug in to iTunes. So 2007, we know. If it’s any consolation, Apple should release iTunes.com at some point…

Say WTH to interruptive notifications and lack of widgets

For all the huge usability advantages iOS 4 has over Android 2.2 — and make no mistake they’re still huge — notifications and widgets are sorely lacking.

You get one notification popup at a time that you have to view or close before you can resume what you were doing (or about to do) and once you close it — or another notification pops up on top of it — it’s gone forever.

Likewise, aside from the orientation lock and music controls in the fast app switcher UI, there’s not widgets. None for the lock screen, none for the home screen.

Hopefully Apple will fix these omissions in a future update. (Because we know Google’s planning on fixing the usability.)

More Android to iPhone help and information

If you haven’t already, check out our complete iOs 4 feature walkthrough. There’s an incredible amount of stuff in iOS 4 and you can save yourself some serious time cribbing off of us.

If you need help, or have a story to share, check out TiPb’s iPhone forum — we’ve got a special switching from Android to iPhone 4 thread going just for you!

And if we forgot anything or just plain got something wrong, let us know and we’ll add it or fix it.

Switching from Android to iPhone 4? Here’s what you need to know is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Today Apple pushed out the final, general release version of iOS 4 to the masses. (At least to the masses of iPhone and iPod touch users — the iPad version isn’t scheduled until later this fall).

• Updating to iOS 4? Here’s what you need to know
  Checking device compatibility, upgrading iTunes, re-virginizing Jailbreak, updating apps, backing up data, and more.
• iOS 4 software update now available for iPhone, iPod touch
  The announcement made, around 10:09am PT/1:09pm ET
• iOS 4 in 10 minutes – video quick-start guide
  Want to get up to speed on the major new features as fast as possible? Need a quick link to send friends and family? Here you go.
• Massive iOS 4 feature walkthrough
  Every new feature we could find in iOS 4 with tons of screenshots and video. We’ve spent time figuring it out so you don’t have to.
• Is there a difference between iOS 4 GM seed and final release?
  In case you’re curious, yes there are and we’re updating them here.
• iOS 4 Jailbreak
  It’s coming, here’s what we know so far (except for when, of course).

• Everything iOS 4 – our one iOS 4 page to rule them all
  All TiPb’s iOS 4 features and news posts all in one place. Bookmark it.

• iOS 4 help and discussion in the TiPb iPhone Forums
  The best place to pass the time, and best dang iPhone community on the ‘net. Period.

And this is just the beginning!

iOS 4 checklist – what to do before, during, and after updating is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Apple has released iBooks 1.1 for iPhone (iOS 4 required) and iPad. Shown off during WWDC 2010, it adds some oft-demanded features such as notes, bookmarks, and the syncing of both of those and highlights — including between devices.

We’ll be back with a review later, but here’s the boilerplate for now:

• Enjoy a complimentary copy of the beautifully illustrated classic, Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne.
• Download many of your favorite books from the included iBookstore.
• Read a free sample of any book on the iBookstore before making it part of your collection.
• Reorder your books on your bookshelf or browse them in a list sorted by title, author, or category.
• Easily adjust your screen brightness to find the perfect lighting for any environment.
• Change the font size and pick from five included type faces to make your books more comfortable to read.
• Find a word, character, or phrase anywhere in your book with the built-in search feature.
• Quickly find a specific page using the page navigator at the bottom of every page.
• Highlight your favorite passages with the built-in bookmarking feature.
• Add books in the industry-standard ePub electronic book format to iTunes and sync them to iPad.
• iBooks supports amazing accessibility features in iPad, such as speaking the words on a given page.

You trying it out? If so, what do you think? How does it compare to iBooks on iPad? To Kindle or Stanza?

Apple releases iBooks 1.1 for iPhone and iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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We let you know a couple days ago there were a few apps that had already been updated via the App Store to support iOS4. Since then we've seen a few more roll out.  Some developers have really taken advantage of the new APIs in iOS4.  Others seem to just be adding compatibility at this point.  Let's hope a lot of them are working on substantial updates.  Hit the jump for some more iOS4 compatible apps!

Evernote

Evernote (version 3.3.5) is one of the first I've seen to implement quite a few 4.0 APIs.  Not only does it come complete with fast app switching integration, but your notes will also be able to sync in the background.  This will be extremely useful for users who like to upload pictures.  I'm always doing this when I'm comparing prices.  I'll take pictures of SKUs from different stores and tag them accordingly which allows me to flip through later and compare which ones are cheaper and which ones have rebates attached, etc.  Much easier than writing a note with all that information.  The down side to that has always been pictures take a bit to sync with the Evernote servers at times and keeping the app open the entire time was somewhat of a pain. Thanks Evernote! (Read more about Evernote and iOS4 here.) [iTunes link]

LinkedIn

For now, it looks like LinkedIn has added support for fast app switching, but I don't see much more than that at this point.  I'd love to see the LinkedIn app get a lot more intuitive than it is.  Hopefully they'll be adding more support in future updates.  If you caught anything I didn't on this one, let us know in the comments! [iTunes link]

Windows Messenger

Not only is this one new to the App Store, it came out of the gate with iOS4 integration built-in.  It also supports alerts for Hotmail as well, so you'll get notifications in-app when you receive new e-mails via your Hotmail account.  And again, if you see anything worth noting, let us know! [iTunes link]

Pandora

I know a lot of you have been waiting for this one. This update just hit the app store a few short hours ago. Pandora background streaming was demonstrated at WWDC 2010 and lots of users were excited to be able to allow Pandora to finally run in the background. This feature has been available for other mobile platforms for quite a while. [iTunes link]

Loopt

Loopt is another company that’s taken advantage of additional APIs available behind iOS4. Fast app switching, PNS alerts, and grid based navigation are a few of the features the new version of Loopt offers. [iTunes link]

WordPress

One of the most popular blogging engines on the planet comes out on release iOS release day claiming Retina Display support? Even if they’re just scaling text and UI elements, good on them. [iTunes link]

Know of any other iOS 4 compatible, feature-empowered apps that we may have missed? Drop them in comments and we’ll include them in the next round up.

More iOS4 Compatible Apps Hit the App Store is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

The forums are a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone and iPad users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if you haven't already head on over and register now!

• Well as you may or may not know, Apple released iOS 4 to the masses earlier today and we want to know about all of the bugs or issues you’ve encountered so far. So sound off in this thread!

• The release of iPhone 4 is just days away, if you have ordered via AT&T have you received your tracking number yet?

• So you didn’t place an order with AT&T but rather Apple, if so have you received your tracking number yet? Sound off!

Want to talk about anything else? Everything else? Get in the forums, it’s the best iOS community on the planet — if we do say so ourselves — and we’re waiting for you!

iOS 4 bugs and issues, AT&T tracking numbers, Apple tracking numbers – from the forums is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

The final release version of iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod touch has just gone live and is now available via iTunes. It weighs in at 378MB. Remember, you need iTunes 9.2, and if you’re running the GM you need to hit Restore as Update will think you already have iOS 4

We’re downloading now, and we assume you are too. So we’ll be back with more news asap and in the mean time, sound off in the comments and let us know how it's working for you, how you like it, and what new goodies you’re finding.

If you need help, check out our iOS 4 checklist for links to everything from how to upgrade to our video quick-start guide to our massive iOS 4 walkthrough or dive right into the TiPb iPhone Forums.

iOS 4 software update now available for iPhone, iPod touch is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

If you are a Pandora user and are currently running iOS 4 on your iPhone or iPod touch then head into the App Store to update the app to version 3.1 which contains the new multitasking feature. Today, at some point, Apple will be releasing iOS 4 to the masses so it is no surprise we will start to see many applications in the App Store updated to be compatible with iOS 4.

So waste no time and take advantage of the latest version of Pandora!

[Thanks to all of you who sent this in!]

Pandora update for iOS 4 now available to download in App Store! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Even though Wi-Fi is required to use FaceTime, because it can be initiated from a voice call it was unclear if it would also use minutes from your voice plan. Apple has confirmed with Business Insider that “the voice call ends as soon as the FaceTime call connects,” so it will not cost you voice minutes to use FaceTime.

This is great news and it certainly raises hope that among those 10 million FaceTime-enabled devices Steve Jobs mentioned at WWDC 2010 will be a next generation, camera-equipped iPod touch this fall. However, we are uncertain what this means for the future when FaceTime become available over 3G. It likely won’t be strictly considered a voice call; but will it be a combination of voice and data, or strictly data? This could have a huge impact on the recent tiered, data capped plans that AT&T has implemented. It is also possible that carriers will create a new “voice calling” category with separate limits. Only time will tell.

What do you expect will be the case? More importantly, does the fact that FaceTime over Wi-Fi doesn’t use up your voice minutes encourage you to use FaceTime more than you were originally planning? Sound off in the comments below!

iPhone 4 FaceTime will not use carrier minutes is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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is there a Jailbreak for iOS 4?

iOS 4 Jailbreak is another question that just won’t stop flooding our mailboxes today. Previous versions of iOS 4 beta up to and including the GM have gotten various states of Jailbreak thanks to the efforts of the iPhone Dev Team. Will the final release version work with current Jailbreaks? Will it work on iPhone 4 hardware?

We’ll have to wait and see. Historically it’s been easier to Jailbreak older models than newer ones, as the cat and mouse game is one of ongoing escalation on both sides.

The Dev Team has tweeted out a few details:

• Don’t install today’s iTunes 9.2 if you plan on using Spirit for fresh JB (but it’s fine for PwnageTool & redsn0w users)
• Redsn0w 4.0 JB now available for Windows http://is.gd/cSXNN … ipt2g and iPhone3G (but no hactivation til public 4.0).
• redsn0w update at http://is.gd/cSXNN … adds battery % and verbose boot and lets you individually pick the options now
• 3.1.3 signing window for iPhone3GS and ipt3G is about to close. Make sure your blobs are on file! http://is.gd/cXcio

As always, if you’re not sure what any of this means, or what Jailbreaking is, then move along. Nothing to see here. If you need help or want to discuss further, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Jailbreak Forum — that’s where all our ninja hang.

And when/if a full on iOS 4 (release version) Jailbreak hits, we — probably Ally — will be back to tell you all about it.

That is, if you’re planning on Jailbreaking iOS 4?

iOS 4 Jailbreak is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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We keep getting asked if there will be a difference between the iOS 4 GM (gold master) seed released to developers at WWDC 2010 and the final GA (general availability) version that’ll be released to end users sometime today.

Maybe. Other than the former being intended for developers and the latter for end-users, we don’t know though we guess they’ll be fairly close (so apps developed under the GM don’t run into problems under the GA). Apple could have found and patched a few trivial bugs, removed debug code, or made a few non-app impacting tweaks. The GM seed may also be read differently in iTunes and not prompt for future updates (i.e. 4.0.1, 4.1, etc.) the way the final release will. Or they could be binary identical.

Until Apple releases it and elite code scourers do their thing, there’s just no way to know.

(And if you don’t know what anything in this post means — we envy you. You shouldn’t have to).

UPDATED: Well, Game Center is gone in the release version, which was to be expected since it was a developer preview. Notice anything else?

UPDATED: Is there a difference between iOS 4 GM seed and final release? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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