With the release of the Motorola Droid, awareness has been raised about the Google Android platform and shown there is a real alternative to Apple’s iPhone. Many people have ditched their iPhone’s and migrated across to the Google platform but have had real trouble working out how to get all of their contacts, settings and app data ported from one device to the other.
We have recently showcased a number of Android apps that will help iPhone owners move from the App Store to the Android Market and today we will show you how to make sure all of your iPhone contacts are ported from the iPhone to your Android phone courtesy of Google Contacts. This is tried and tested on a HTC Hero, I haven’t had the chance to check and see if it works with the Droid. If it works for you, please let us know in the comments.
Migrating Your Contacts With iTunes
Perhaps the easiest way to get your contacts from your iPhone to your Android phone is to use the built-in option within iTunes. Here, you can check a tick box and automatically have iTunes sync your contacts to your Google Account.
The downside of this is that Apple do not allow you to sync these contacts to a specific group. They are simply added to the rest of your Google Contacts, so if you were to sync your Android device after this, you would get a massive group of both email contacts and phone contacts with no way to identify your imported iPhone contacts.
Outputting Your Contacts To Windows Contacts
Outputting your contacts to Windows Contacts was how I was able to get the most control over my contacts. When you use Windows Contacts, you are able to select all of the contacts and export them into a CSV file.
If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 make sure to output all information so that all numbers and data are outputted to the CSV file. Save this file in an easy accessible location as you will need it for the next step.
Importing Your CSV File To Google Contacts
Now we need to import the CSV into your Gmail account. To do this, log into your Gmail account and then click the “Contacts” link.
On the right hand side of the Contacts screen on the top bar there is an Import | Export | Print section. Click Import and then Browse to find the CSV file you exported earlier.
Important
Make sure you click the Also add these imported contacts to: tick box and select a new group for these contacts to be added to. This will make sure that your iPhone contacts are differentiated from all other contacts so you can simply import them.
Syncing Your Google Contacts To Your Android Phone
If you inputted your Google account information when you first used your Android phone you may have found that all of your contacts had already imported across. What we need to do now is tell the phone to only sync the contacts you imported into the group we just created.
Open up the People app on your Android Phone. Click right with your trackball or keyboard and select the Groups section. Once here, click Menu and then select Sync Groups. This will display all of the Google Account Groups you have created, you simply have to select the group you created and named above and you are all ready to go.
Your Android phone will take a while to sync the correct updates but within ten minutes or so you should now have an updated and useful contacts list!
