The three Chinese smartphone manufacturers Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have announced that they have agreed to make it easier to transfer data between their models when changing smartphones. But at the moment only the Chinese market is affected.
The three Chinese smartphone manufacturers Oppo, Xiaomi and Vivo have agreed to simplify data transfer between their products. // Source: @MIUI via Weibo
The three Chinese giants preferred to work together to simplify users’ lives. On Wednesday, March 22, 2023, the manufacturers Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi announced via their respective Weibo social media accounts that they had formed an alliance make it easier for their Chinese users to transfer their app data when changing smartphones. An ad spotted by the specialized website Android Police.
If today it is already possible to easily move certain information, such as photos or contacts, from one phone to another, especially if they are synchronized with a Google account, it remains difficult to move data from third-party applications without an unofficial backup to iterate tool. It would therefore now be easier to switch smartphones between these three brands … even if there is a problem.
Just update an app
Since the three manufacturers’ announcements were made through their Weibo accounts for their Android interfaces (MIUI for Xiaomi, ColorsOS for Oppo and OriginiOS for Vivo), we can conclude that the three interfaces already take this tool into account. Each of the manufacturers also specifies that it will be necessary to upgrade its existing data transfer application to take advantage of this improved data transfer.
Once started, “you don’t have to worry about your chat history when you switch phones,” promises Xiaomi. A Weibo user also shared screenshots of this new process: on one of these applications we see an option to activate to download the gigabytes of Chinese instant messengers WeChat and QQ.
Source: @Vetrax via Weibo, translated by Frandroid
Problem: According to Android Police, “the migration tool is exclusive to smartphones in China and will not be launched in international markets”. So don’t expect to use this system in France. But as the news site notes, Chinese users still do not have access to Google services and cloud storage backup system. At least we can be happy for them.
An approach that we are hoping for here
However, we hope that other manufacturers will follow this trend in western countries, where the transfer of data from third-party applications is not always well supported.
By making this choice, manufacturers try to make it harder to leave their ecosystem in order to keep their customers. Conversely, by facilitating this transfer to their products, they could persuade users of competing brands to switch to them.
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