Xiaomi, Vivo and OPPO have announced an agreement that will make it much easier to migrate between their phones by seamlessly transferring data from third-party apps. Two years ago the three companies (and others) reached a similar agreement to create their alternative to Google’s Nearby Share.
Android is very different in China. Without Google, there is also no Google Data Transfer Tool which, although still limited, has started to improve by allowing us to pass WhatsApp chats. In China, manufacturers have decided to get down to work with a new strategic alliance to facilitate data migration between Xiaomi, Vivo and OPPO mobiles.
Your data follows you wherever you go
Many Android developments rely on Google Services or are simply not part of the open source version of Android, so they are not available in China. Without a company like Google to organize common tasks, manufacturers have been forced to ally with each other to fill gaps that Google provides in the West.
Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and sometimes Huawei have allied on several occasions for this type of tasks: from creating an app store to facilitating file transfer between devices with the same standard (alternative to Nearby Share) and, now, facilitating data migration between their mobiles.
Xiaomi, Vivo and OPPO join forces to make it easier to take your data to your new phone. It was already possible to do so with photos, videos and contacts, but the alliance adds something very important: data from third-party apps. This is always complicated, but it can mean that chat history is transferred to the new phone automatically.
The alliance also makes the transfer of data between each brand’s own applications faster. The only requirement is to have each brand’s migration apps updated (version 6.2.5.1 for Vivo, 13.3.7 for OPPO and 4.0.0 for Xiaomi).
In principle this alliance should only apply to China, although it highlights one of the big problems of Android: with Google or without Google, getting your data to your new phone is never a simple task.