EU welcomes seamless data transfer between iPhone and Android

Apple and Google want to simplify data transfer between their iOS and Android platforms, support more data formats, and enable wireless transfer. The EU welcomes this step, stating: The Digital Markets Act is showing its effect.

Benefits for users and developers

The EU Commission has sent a statement to 9to5Mac. In it, a Commission spokesperson says about Apple and Google's cooperation in this area that it is an "example of how the Digital Markets Act (DMA) benefits users and developers".

The EU further states that this solution allows users to easily transfer data from iPhone to Android and vice versa when setting up a new device. According to the report, the transfer is intended to support "many types of data" – including contacts, calendar events, messages, photos, documents, Wi-Fi networks, passwords, and also data from third-party apps. Unlike previous solutions, the optimized method will also be wireless.

eSIM transfer also a DMA product

According to the EU, the more seamless cross-platform data transfer follows the introduction of eSIM transfer by Apple and Google last October. Currently, however, this solution is only supported by a few network operators, but also by some outside the EU.

Both solutions are the direct result of the DMA, which "requires effective data portability" from certain services – including iOS and Android, the EU statement continues. Apple has summarized its work on this project in its DMA compliance reports from March 2024 and March 2025. Furthermore, the solutions are possible through extensive technical work and collaboration between Apple and Google, as well as through intensive discussions with the Commission over the past two years, according to the EU spokesperson.

Unlike numerous features that Apple offers exclusively to its customers in the EU, such as alternative marketplaces, the seamless data transfer between platforms will be provided worldwide. For Apple, the solution is likely to be a win to attract new customers from Google's Android. This could, of course, also happen the other way around, with Google poaching from Apple. For consumers, the new solution means no longer being necessarily trapped in one of the two platform worlds.

Incidentally, Apple will have to open up its iOS and iPadOS even further in the future, so that headphones and smartwatches, for example, work more seamlessly with the operating systems. These requirements are not at all to the company's liking, and it wanted to prevent this. The iPhone maker and Google are also not big fans of the Digital Markets Act: Apple would prefer to abolish the law, Google wishes for a reset, as it causes significant collateral damage in its current form.

(afl)