WhatsApp has finally answered the calls of users who want to switch from one of the two major mobile operating systems to the other. It’s so obvious, it seems crazy it’s taken the chat app 12 years of its life to get here.
When you upgrade your phone it’s relatively easy to backup your WhatsApp chat history and files and download them onto a new device – unless you’re switching from Android to iPhone, that is. Up until now, there was simply no way to transfer your photos, chats and voice notes between the two systems.
But this massive oversight is finally getting a fix. WhatsApp introduced Smart Switch at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event yesterday. Samsung’s foldable devices will be the first to get the feature, because it’s based on the Korean manufacturer’s own built-in tech.
But don’t worry – the feature will be coming to all Samsung devices that run Android 10 or higher in the next few weeks. To start, users will be able to take their WhatsApp history from iOS to an Android device, with support for moving from Android to iOS coming soon.
The long-awaited update has been rumoured since late last month when beta testers found a “Move chats to Android” option buried in WhatsApp’s iOS version. It follows the news that Android is creating a new app similar to Apple’s “Move to iOS” which will seamlessly switch your data, files and apps over to your new phone.
