(You can of course get some of this data from iOS, but things like preferences and settings from the default applications just are not accessible.)
iOS, the "Hotel California" of mobile?
I'd venture that Google's tightening its grip on Android and making it more closed than it ever was. A high profile engineer, JBQ, quit AOSP project for a reason. As an android user, one is already consuming a lot of Google resources for free; and Google isn't going to sit back and not make you pay for it.
http://www.techhive.com/article/188696/Apple_Bans_the_Word_A...
It might seem nit-picky, but that is so vague as to be untrue. The reason JBQ quit, as I pieced together from his G+/tweets, was because of 3rd party drivers for a Nexus device that were not released as open source as he would have liked (he managed AOSP releases). Inferring from his posts at the time, this was something he realised as a potential problem ahead of time and notified legal, but it seemed nothing was done (or they failed in negotiating with manufacturer).
I'm not a Googler, so I could also be off-base here. I apologise ahead of time if I misrepresented anyone.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/android-5-0-lollipop-...
This kind of reasoning central point of the copyleft vs. permissive licensing debate: should the goal be
- to maximize the freedom of choice for the end user even if the choice curtails his own freedom?
- or to maximize the freedom of the software / system itself even if that curtails the freedom of choice for the end user?
Whatever the path taken it is naive to expect people and companies to follow the spirit of the license instead of its letter when is more beneficial to them to follow the later. Neither imoral nor evil IMO.
Thing is: for technical people like us it's a no-brainer, stay the hell away. This kind of thing is going to get a whole bunch of Aunt Tillys locked up in Apple. From that perspective the one option is clearly more "evil" as it preys on ignorance.
Are you implying that technical people do not use iOS? Well, you might be surprised if you dig for some statistics.
But it's misleading because it creates the impression that users can easily move between mobile operating systems, when in fact this door Apple has built is strictly one-way. They won't tell you that ahead of time, of course.
To us technical users, it's obvious that moving data between closed server-based services is fraught with complications. But a lot of regular people don't understand those nuances. Copying data from a phone to another is just moving over some files, right? Apple is supporting that expectation.
Apple and Google both make access to the lists of songs, contacts, photos, etc data on your device and this app simply uses those APIs to transfer the DRM free music and other data from one device to the other.
It's true that your data being on one device makes it difficult for average people to migrate when they switch devices.
The only difference here is that Apple took the time to write a program to make the transfer onto their platform easy for users. They've had a similar migration assistant for OS X for around a decade.
This is consistent with Apple's focus on the user and building of consumer level technology.
Google's approach is different. Android is just a strategic action, not a product, and so they don't really care to put this level of effort in.
That doesn't make Google virtuous or Apple evil. In fact, I would say focusing on making your customers lives better is virtuous.
It's a shame that such an ideology has sprung up that everything Apple does is routinely asserted to be evil here, even though most of it is designed to protect users, while google, which does nothing to protect people and frequently violates users rights is sign as some paragon of virtue.
You could already access most relevant information through secured authentication to iCloud anyway.