Technology…what?! That’s right, I’m bringing out the nerdy today. Yes, yes. If you didn’t already know, I was a Business major with a concentration in Information Systems. Slightly tech savvy with a love for social media. That’s me!
So let me go through the steps I took, just in case you make the same change (and somehow trust me with your transition rather than an actual technology blog or article or how-to).
My goals:
- Purchase the Galaxy S4
- Unlock my iPhone 4
- Transfer everything from iPhone 4 to Galaxy S4
Here’s how it went:
- Purchased the Galaxy S4 from Walmart. Got a great deal of $138 + $40 Walmart gift card, what up!! (However, it’s an e-gift card and was emailed to me a couple months after my purchase.)
- Followed this article on how to unlock my iPhone 4. So I called AT&T, backed up my phone, restored my phone (not to factory settings) but didn’t get a notification saying it was unlocked. I’m hoping it is…
- Used the app from samsungsmartswitch.com to help transfer over everything except for music. I ran out of space! I had used up about 14gb out of my 16gb phone storage so I transferred my music separately using the same app two months after because I had to get a microSD card for more storage space.
The problems I ran into:
- All my contacts didn’t transfer as desired. This was a huge problem. I think when I started transferring my contacts, I chose an option to sync it with my Gmail. However, this was a huge mistake because my Gmail had only stored emails up until that point. So instead of consolidating all contact information for my contacts from both my phone and Gmail account like I thought it would, it overwrote my phone contact information for those people I had emails for in my Gmail and left me with just their emails (if that makes sense). So for people in my Gmail contact list, I only have their emails and not their phone numbers anymore…which was very unfortunate. I’m still missing phone numbers to this day; just been too lazy to ask for phone numbers until I really needed them.
- Needing more space. I ordered the 16gb S4 because I knew I could buy a microSD to make up for the lost storage but it didn’t occur to me that I was going from a 32gb iPhone to a 16gb S4 and didn’t purchase a microSD ahead of time to make transferring smoother and faster. Therefore, my tons of music couldn’t be transferred until I got a microSD, which I purchased in 64gb due to my love for taking pictures and videos 🙂
- I wasn’t receiving certain texts. I noticed this when my mom told me she sent me texts but I received none. I did research and realized this was because I couldn’t receive iMessages from people with iPhones. The problem is that my iMessage was turned on on my iPhone and people were saying you had to turn it off before making the switch to an S4. To fix this, I had to turn on my iPhone again, turn off iMessage, and unregister my iPhone and disable its association with my Apple ID.
- Group texts wouldn’t be received. One of my friends told me that he went to the Samsung Messaging app, clicked to Settings, and checked the Group Messaging box. I’ve been able to receive group texts afterward.
Final thoughts
Overall, my switch wasn’t as smooth as I had hoped it would be. If you plan on making the switch, I hope my mistakes and the issues I ran into will help prepare you for a better transition than mine was. On a lighter note, I’ll be releasing a Likes/Dislikes (or Pros/Cons) post on the Galaxy S4 very soon so keep an eye out for that SGS4 users!!
AMANDAMLIM 