How to Get (Most) Apple Apps and Services to Work on Android
While many people use the Apple or Windows/Android ecosystem entirely, there are also those who spend their time with some devices made by different companies, which can lead to scenarios such as needing to access Apple apps and services on Android.
Accessing Apple devices from a phone running Google’s mobile operating system has gotten easier in recent years, but there’s certainly still room for improvement. And to be clear, we’re not talking about switching all your data and files from the Apple ecosystem to Android and leaving Apple behind—we’re talking about getting email, movies, files, and more through Android while using Apple hardware too .
Email, contacts, calendars
Thanks to the magic of IMAP, you can access your Apple iCloud email through the Gmail app for Android: From the main email tab, tap your account’s profile picture (top right), then select Add another account and follow the prompts. Messages from different accounts are stored separately, with their own notification settings. (You can switch accounts by tapping your account’s profile picture again.)
Unfortunately, things aren’t quite as simple with contacts and calendar information: you can transfer that data from iOS and iCloud to Google if you’re ditching your Apple devices, but you can’t set up two-way sync or save feeds. open as you can when emails land in your Apple inbox.
Even opening iCloud on the web in an Android web browser won’t help here (more on that below), since the Contacts and Calendar components of the iCloud web portal are fine to view and interact with in a desktop browser. – do not appear when you use a mobile browser.
You’ll find various apps in the Google Play store to transfer your Apple contacts and calendars to Android, but in my experience, they’re not particularly reliable—and you’ll also have to trust your Apple login credentials to a third party. Apple’s own apps would be ideal, but they may take a long time to appear.
iCloud Files, Photos, and Videos
Without the official iCloud app for Android, it’s impossible to download anything from the iCloud Drive or Apple Photos apps to your Android device. The less-than-ideal option is to access iCloud on the web through your Android web browser of choice, and then sign in using your Apple credentials to access apps like iCloud Drive, Photos, Mail, Notes. , “Find mine.” and Reminders (but not Contacts or Calendar).
iCloud running through a mobile browser isn’t actually as bad as you might think, but it’s obviously not as good as a dedicated native mobile app. Almost everything you can do in a desktop web browser with iCloud works on Android—you can view and download photos and videos, for example, but you don’t have editing features or anything like that.
It’s the same with the iCloud Drive web portal portion: files can be viewed, shared, deleted, moved, duplicated, and renamed with just a few taps on the screen. You can also upload files to the iCloud and Photos apps, although there’s no way to sync pictures and videos taken on your Android device directly to iCloud.
There are also other additional features you get with iCloud on the web, including Hide My Email and HomeKit Protected Video. In the meantime, open the Find My app to see your Apple devices on a map—potentially very handy if you’ve lost access to them but have access to an Android device ( Apple Maps doesn’t work on the web, by the way). I don’t work in mobile browsers yet, so you’re out of luck here).
Streaming and Entertainment
Getting Apple Music on Android devices couldn’t be easier: you simply install Apple Music for Android, one of the few mobile apps that Apple actually develops for the Google platform (along with apps for discovering AirTags that you don’t own), and switch from Android on iOS. Apple Music for Android isn’t as polished as the iOS equivalent, but it gets the job done.
Unfortunately, there is no Apple TV app for Android phones or tablets yet. If you want to access Apple TV+ and everything you might have purchased from Apple’s entertainment library on your Android device, you’ll need to go to Apple TV on the web in your Android web browser and sign in with your Apple credentials.
Again, it’s not the most pleasant experience, but it’s okay. You can stream whatever you want right in the Android browser and switch to full-screen mode if necessary. All your viewing is synced across devices, so you can start watching on your Mac and then finish on your Android smartphone if needed.
Internet access also works with Apple Podcasts: simply open the Apple Podcasts web portal and you can pick up where you left off, watch new episodes, subscribe to new podcasts, and more. There’s also a web player for Apple Music , which you can access from Android devices if you don’t want to install the app.