Earlier today, Google officially unveiled the new Pixel family of smartphones – the 5.0-inch Pixel and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL. These two devices are similar in some respects: both benefit from a metal unibody chassis with 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset backed up by 4 GB of RAM, a choice of either 32 GB or 128 GB of local storage, a 12.3-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera combination. Both boxes contain a 18-watt USB-C adapter, a USB A to USB C cable, a USB C to USB C cable, the SIM adapter and the quick switch adapter. The quick switch adapter is designed to help customers set up their new Pixel device by connecting their old smartphone, which may be either an Android or an Apple iOS device, to the Pixel via the charging and data cable. During the presentation for the Google Pixel family of smartphones, Google made it quite clear that they were aiming some aspects of the new Pixel at iPhone customers including how the new Google devices come with a 3.5 mm headphone socket. Google are also including an iOS data transfer function as part of the Pixel, which works with both the iPhone and the iPad.
In the detail, Google warn that the Pixel should have at least 50% of battery before starting the process. For customers moving from the Apple iPhone (or the iPad), this must be running Apple iOS 8 or later (so customers using the old 2012 Apple iPhone 4, or older, are out of luck); for customers using an Android device, Google notes that most devices running at least Android 5.0 Lollipop should be supported including the last two generations of Nexus smartphone. Google’s support documentation explains that customers moving from the iPhone should deregister from Apple iMessage and Apple Facetime before starting the process (but goes on to say that should customers not do this, they may contact Apple to remove their device registration separately). To start the process, simply attach the old ‘phone to the new one via the included Smart switch adapter and follow the on-screen prompts. Customers have the choice of what information to pull across from the old device to the new Pixel.
Google have been including device transfer technology as part of Android for some time now, including the ability to set up a local device from the old device, plus of course signing into a Gmail account provides customers the option to restore some settings. It’s good news that Google have worked to improve this as it is one less barrier for a customer migrating from an old device to a new one, and kudos for Google in including the adapter with every device.