Following ’s new guide for switching to Android will put you firmly in the company’s grip.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as has strong cloud services for managing your mail, photos, contacts, music. Yet in contrast with Apple’s recently published tutorial for migrating to the ione, ’s strategy is to keep you using its services even if you do move back to the ione one day. Its services are also clearly better at migration present on both platforms, making switching painless.

For example, the guide recommends downloading + on your ione enabling Auto Backup to import all your photos, which would then show up on your shiny new Android phone with the otos app.

Same goes with mail: If you already have or plan to set up a new Gmail account, there’s a Gmail app awaiting your arrival if transferring back to iOS. The walkthrough even shows you how to extract your contacts from iCloud transfer them over to Gmail.

Music? Yep. There’s ay Music, where you can subscribe to l Access , just as with Spotify, listen to anything in the company’s catalogue. The Android guide even shows you how to import all your iTunes music (as long as you have less than 20,000 songs) into ay.

’s switching guide also reminds you to turn off iMessage so when friends text you it doesn’t keep going to your ione.

y this matters: Switching ecosystems is just as much about where your data resides as what phone you use. Both Apple are battling to get you to buy in to their services so you’ll stay a lifelong customer. The more invested you are in apps cloud storage, the less likely you are to switch.

clearly has a lead in this area as it can more cleanly get you to import data to its services. It assures the company that even if you do leave Android, you can stay in ’s cloud generate revenue.

Apple’s guide relies on outside help

Apple, on the other h, recommends third-party apps for helping you transfer, such as the Copy my Data app for moving your contacts over or the Android File Transfer tool for moving over music saved on your phone.

If you use ay Music, the guide should instead point to ’s tutorial for downloading your music so you can transfer it to iTunes.

Apple also recommends third-party tools otoSync AT&T Mobile Transfer for moving over photos, contacts, calendar, videos.

Apple also relies on its dominant App Store for soothing one’s switch, with apps for most email music services, like Yahoo Mail, Spotify, Beats (which Apple recently purchased).