WhatsApp gets new trick on Google and Samsung – but new iPhone owners miss out
WHATSAPP is rolling out a much-demanded feature to Google phones as well as Samsung – but iPhones miss out.
The new trick lets you switch between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android when you swap phones.
Until recently, ditching one platform for the other almost always meant losing your WhatsApp history.
This could be a major turn-off for people considering abandoning their iPhone or Android.
It would mean having to start fresh on WhatsApp, losing all previous chat history.
But a major update in September allowed Samsung phones to restore an old iPhone chat history – and Google Pixel phones can now do it too.
Sadly it doesn’t work in reverse – people switching to iPhone still lose their chats.
All Google Pixel phones support the new process.
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WhatsApp’s transfer feature works on voice notes, photos and conversations.
And the app even preserves end-to-end encryption throughout the process.
“Your WhatsApp messages belong to you,” said WhatsApp’s Sandepp Paruchuri.
“That’s why they are stored on your phone by default, and not accessible in the cloud like many other messaging services.
“We’re excited for the first time to make it easy for people to securely transfer their WhatsApp history from one operating system to another.
“This has been one of our most-requested features from users for years, and we worked together with operating systems and device manufacturers to solve it.”
WhatsApp says it eventually plans to expand the scheme beyond moving from iPhone to Samsung and Pixel phones.
The Facebook-owned chat app says it’ll become available on all new smartphones that launch with Android 12.
That’s the latest version of Google’s Android OS, recently featured on new Pixel smartphones.
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