Android phone + iPad

Rimsy · 22 Aug 2018 at 14:03

Hi
A couple of potential "switch" questions.
I'm an android phone user but very likely to be picking up an iPad pro when they are refreshed in the next few months.
Just wondering how well the apple versions of android apps play with Android services specifically Google photos, Google play movies/music, drive and chrome.
Currently have an android tablet and it's all pretty seamless (eg pictures taken on my phone immediately appear on tablet etc etc)
Anyone taken a similar step and able to feedback their experiences?

Gary L. Maples · 23 Aug 2018 at 06:18

Don't about android phone + iPad>
I'm using iPhone + iPad, and it's great. I mean its just works!

Deleted member 77746 · 23 Aug 2018 at 12:22

It's probably the means of just install the Google apps on the iPad and the photos should automatically come down. Not used third party stuff with Apple before so not sure how well it works but there's no reason not too.

Royal Fleet · 23 Aug 2018 at 12:32

I am a heavy Apple user (including an IPad Pro) and use the Google apps heavily. Email, photos, search, calendar, chrome. All easy and fully functioned. Not used the music but would be surprised if that was an issue. Only downside is you can't set them as default apps but that is not really an issue.

Just be careful. I started with an Ipad. Iphones followed soon after; then the watch...it's a slippery slope.

Rimsy · 23 Aug 2018 at 16:05

Royal Fleet said:
I am a heavy Apple user (including an IPad Pro) and use the Google apps heavily. Email, photos, search, calendar, chrome. All easy and fully functioned. Not used the music but would be surprised if that was an issue. Only downside is you can't set them as default apps but that is not really an issue.

Just be careful. I started with an Ipad. Iphones followed soon after; then the watch...it's a slippery slope.

Hah.. thanks for the warning. I've had a work iPhone in the past so fairly sure I'll not fall for that trap however the ipad pro + pencil is a very tasty bit of kit!

Royal Fleet · 23 Aug 2018 at 18:12

I am a complete convert to the pencil. No longer use a pen and paper at work. If you get one check out the Penultimate note app. I am not sure if you use Evernote but it is part of that suite. Fantastic way to keep everything organised. Well worth paying for the premium version of it but the free will certainly suffice.

whiskycycle · 24 Aug 2018 at 09:29

@Rimsy

I'm using a Huawei P20 Pro with an iPad Pro 10.5 and it's a near-perfect combo.

Google Photos will basically show whatever you phone uploads, and likewise on the phone if you do anything on the iPad. I've turned off iCloud photo stream, and just let the Google app do it's thing.

Music pretty much mirrors the Android version, but without store access to buy things... Movies is the same.

Drive works pretty well, and you can pull things from drive into most iPad apps quite easily.

Chrome behaves on the whole like the native Android version.

All told, it's nearly as seamless as the Android tablet would be, with the difference that the iPad is a vastly superior tablet!

Rimsy · 24 Aug 2018 at 10:02

whiskycycle said:
@Rimsy

I'm using a Huawei P20 Pro with an iPad Pro 10.5 and it's a near-perfect combo.

Google Photos will basically show whatever you phone uploads, and likewise on the phone if you do anything on the iPad. I've turned off iCloud photo stream, and just let the Google app do it's thing.

Music pretty much mirrors the Android version, but without store access to buy things... Movies is the same.

Drive works pretty well, and you can pull things from drive into most iPad apps quite easily.

Chrome behaves on the whole like the native Android version.

All told, it's nearly as seamless as the Android tablet would be, with the difference that the iPad is a vastly superior tablet!

Brilliant thanks for taking time to write that - exactly what I was hoping to hear!
Cheers

LiE · 24 Aug 2018 at 15:49

Does anyone know if you sync your Google Calendar on the iPad, will you get push notifications when changes are made to a shared Google calendar?

Faustus · 24 Aug 2018 at 22:48

I have an S7 phone and iPad combo. If you look at my iPad you'd swear it was Android as I have the full suite of Google apps because I think they are just so much better than the Apple alternatives. The marriage between the two devices is seamless. To answer LiE question, Google Calendar works flawlessly with the iPad. I would recommend you switch off the awful iCal in your iCloud settings.

The iPad is a good tablet (this is my second). However, I had a Sony Tablet in the interim and I can't really agree with Rimsy that the iPad is vastly superior.

Omar · 29 Aug 2018 at 17:29

LiE said:
Does anyone know if you sync your Google Calendar on the iPad, will you get push notifications when changes are made to a shared Google calendar?

Pretty sure this should work.

I've got an Android phone and both Calendar and Chrome on the iPad Pro work perfectly for me.

LiE · 29 Aug 2018 at 18:49

Omar said:
Pretty sure this should work.

I've got an Android phone and both Calendar and Chrome on the iPad Pro work perfectly for me.

I tried on my wife's iPad and push notifications for changes are only available for iCloud calendars.

Omar · 29 Aug 2018 at 22:15

LiE said:
I tried on my wife's iPad and push notifications for changes are only available for iCloud calendars.

Oh, what a strange restriction to have!

FishLicker · 5 Sep 2018 at 22:58

whiskycycle said:
@Rimsy

I'm using a Huawei P20 Pro with an iPad Pro 10.5 and it's a near-perfect combo.

Google Photos will basically show whatever you phone uploads, and likewise on the phone if you do anything on the iPad. I've turned off iCloud photo stream, and just let the Google app do it's thing.

Music pretty much mirrors the Android version, but without store access to buy things... Movies is the same.

Drive works pretty well, and you can pull things from drive into most iPad apps quite easily.

Chrome behaves on the whole like the native Android version.

All told, it's nearly as seamless as the Android tablet would be, with the difference that the iPad is a vastly superior tablet!

Probably a bit late to the party, but....

I have a Pixel 2 XL as my phone and an iPad Pro 10.5 tablet. The Pro actually replaced a Pixel C tablet which was sadly quite inferior all said and done.

That being said, I don’t agree its as flawless as using G-Apps on an Android device. Most apps are OK, but a couple of them are problematic at times. Google Photos for one. In theory, yes it shows you what’s on your phone but in reality mine often stops syncing on the iPad and getting it to sync again can be tricky when it decides its had enough, and in extreme cases, requires reinstalling the app. Also I use Play Music on there, it works, but what a mess. Very sluggish UI (on rare occasions its actually caused the iPad to reboot) and the search is as good as useless, failing to find a lot of songs despite being able to manually find them. To be fair most of them are OK. It’s a shame YouTube doesn’t support PiP as the iPad does support this otherwise (but yeah, they’re rivals so...) or background playback. Chrome browser is OK but the gestures are horrible, needing to swipe your hand half way across the screen to go back, so I end up using Safari.

Having said all that, most Android tablets now are cheap tat and even google has given up on them, so there ain’t much alternative.

I am happy with the combo, can live with it, but I won’t lie, its not a seamless experience at all and iOS has its own set of issues which adds to the fact. The iPad Pro is a superb machine with great apps but I am far from in love with iOS and the restrictions it brings, but that said, there are no compromise free alternatives out there, and what it does, it does bloody well.