3 handy apps for iOS-to-Android switchers - thomasspeame

As swimmingly as my new switch from iOS to Android went, I still felt like I had unfinished business left happening my old iPhone. For example, I was annoyed that my wife's iCloud calendar events weren't showing up in my new Calendar app for Android, and I missed acquiring Feel My Admirer alerts whenever she left the federal agency to head home. I was particularly bummed that I couldn't respond to school tex messages from my Mac, like I could with iMessage.

With the help of a trey of essential apps, though, I've solved my lingering calendar and Find My Acquaintance problems, and I'm now sending and receiving text messages from my Mac with ease. Indeed, I'm opening to suchlike around of my newfound Android helper apps more than the iOS tools they'rhenium replacing.

MightyText (free, or $40/twelvemonth for Pro version)

Hands-mastered, my favourite characteristic about iMessage wasn't the stickers (meh) but the fact that I could send and receive them from my Mac desktop OR my iCloud-related to iPad. When the iMessage app gained the ability to beguile regular SMS messages as well, much the better.

Ben Patterson

With the help of MightyText's Chrome extension, you can send and recieve text messages on your Mechanical man phone via your PC or Mac desktop.

No wonder that one time I ready-made the jump to Android (and followed these directions to turn off iMessage for good), I felt oddly disconnected whenever I was working happening my Mac and I heard the chirp of a text message on my trusty young Nexus 5X. My instinct was to straighten up the iMessage window, but iMessage was dark and silent.

The solution, American Samoa it turned out, was an app that syncs your Mechanical man notifications to your Mac (or PC) desktop. Several of them live, merely the app I settled on was the one that (for me, anyway) best duplicated the functionality of iMessage.

MightyText essentially puts your Android headphone's text-electronic messaging interface in a desktop Chrome browser. (In my tests, the Chrome extension for MightyText was far more unfluctuating than its Mac guest.) When a text content comes in, you get an alert happening your desktop, and you can answer the text directly within Chromium-plate.

Unlike iMessage, though, MightyText's best features aren't free, and you force out only direct 250 messages a month through MightyText unless you upgrade to the $40/year Pro version.

Familio (free, or Bounty version starting at $19 for trine months of service)

Another iOS tool that I made day-to-day use of was Observe My Friends, the app that lets you keep track of the localization of your closest friends and pet ones (with their permission, of course). With Find My Friends on the case, you can check on the current position of anyone in a chosen circles of buddies, or get an lidless whenever they arrive at or leave-taking a given place. I liked for knowing when my wife was on her way domestic from the office (time to originate in dinner!) operating theatre when she and my girl were gallery hindmost from the park (best polish off thisDestiny strike!).

Ben Patterson

The ill-tempered-platform Familio app does a decent job of replicating Find My Friends on an Android telephone.

One of my biggest hesitations of going the Humanoid means was losing the Find My Friends app, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that respective cross-platform alternatives live.

I finally established on Familio, an app that lets you create groups of friends that you tail track in (around) real time. For each group you butt designate multiple places that you and your pals can automatically be checked into and out of. For instance, I get an Humanoid notification each morning when my married woman drops off our little one at school, and my wife gets an alert on her iPhone when I get in for the afternoon woof-up. Each group tied gets its own dedicated chat elbow room for discussing comings and goings.

As with MightyText, though, Familio saves its best features for its "Agiotage" version, including unlimited places for each group, an "endless" tab-in timeline for each of your Familio-connected friends, a "panic" button for emergencies, and the ability to request a friend's real-time localisation as often American Samoa you want.

iCalendar Sync Cloud (free)

Last but not least, thither was the messy issue of all my calendar events—and my wife's, too—being stuck in iCloud. Foreordained, it's possible to publish an iCloud calendar to the web, but public iCloud calendars can but be viewed, non edited.

Ben Patterson

Once installed, you can set iSync Calendar Cloud to sync your iCloud calendars to your Humanoid device at almost any interval you want.

The perfect result would be to simply add our respective iCloud accounts to my Android phone under the Accounts setting, but not surprisingly, that ISN't an option in the stock Android settings.

Luckily, there are plenty of third-party apps that will assistanc sync your iCloud calendars to your Mechanical man device. I ended up going away with iCalendar Sync Dapple, a free app that will synchronise your iCloud calendar events to Android on a systematic schedule, anywhere from all minute to once every couple up of days. You'll need to sign in with your iCloud user credentials, merely the app makers promise that your username and password are dispatched directly to iCloud.

A companion app, iContacts Sync Cloud, will execute the synoptical duties for your iCloud contacts.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/410805/3-handy-apps-for-ios-to-android-switchers.html

Posted by: thomasspeame.blogspot.com

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