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Apple introduced a new tool this week that makes it easy for iCloud users to transfer all of their photo and video collections to Google Photos. It’s an unusual case of interoperability from the company known for its “walled garden” approach that tends to keep services like iCloud and iMessage limited to its own hardware, so that customers tied to those services continue to buy its hardware.
To transfer a library to Google Photos, users need to visit Apple’s privacy website and sign in to their iCloud account. From there, a new option will appear called “Transfer a copy of your data”. If you follow all the steps, an entire library will be transferred to Google Photos, as long as the Google account in question has enough storage available.
Does it matter? – Google will discontinue unlimited free storage from June 2021 – if you are like most people and have a large library of photos on your phone, you will have to spend more storage space. Perhaps Apple is allowing transfers now that the competitor’s service will be less attractive. Google and Apple’s premium storage plans are priced identically, though the former offers more free storage upfront: 15GB on Google Drive vs. 5GB with iCloud.
Giving users some redundancy and options on where to store their libraries is a good thing. Even if someone doesn’t intend to switch to Google Photos, having the option to export to another service can give users peace of mind that their photos will be easy to take elsewhere in the event of some kind of disaster … or change. heart or phone mark.
It was already possible to export photos from iCloud before today simply by installing the Google Photos app on an iOS device and performing a manual sync. But for very large libraries, it could take a long time. With Apple’s new service, the company will do all of that work for you – it says the transfer process can take three to seven days.
Certain file formats do not transfer, such as Live Photos. Only the most recent edit of a photo is transferred, rather than the original. And some metadata may not be transferred either.
Motivations – It is possible that Apple was motivated to offer this transfer service to avoid growing antitrust concerns and looming threats from regulators. Critics say the company’s control over the iOS ecosystem gives its own apps an unfair advantage over those of its rivals and stifles competition in the process.
Apple has responded by slowly opening iOS, allowing users to change their default apps for web browsing and email. However, it still doesn’t allow users to change the default music app and is in a legal battle with Epic Games over the fees it charges developers for the sales of its paid apps on the App Store. Additionally, users cannot download apps that have not been approved by Apple, something that may have to change if regulators have their way.
