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Android 5.0 Tap & Go Restores Your Phone in Minutes

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This week Google announced the brand new Android 5.0 Lollipop update, and it’s finally here for a select few. One of the many impressive new features is something called Tap & Go, which essentially copies everything from your old phone to your new Android 5.0 phone with one tap.

Google unveiled the Nexus 6 smartphone, Nexus 9 tablet, a Nexus media player, and Android 5.0 Lollipop this week, but most users won’t be able to get their hands on the latest software until November at the earliest. Today though, Google released a final Android 5.0 Developer Preview, and we want to share one of many awesome new features.

Read: How to Install Android 5.0 Lollipop Right Now

Android 5.0 Lollipop has tons of changes. It’s a complete visual overhaul, supports 64-bit processors, is loaded with new advanced features, bright colors, animations, effects and much much more. However, on first boot it was the new “Tap N Go” that users will love. It restores your old phone to a new one in minutes, and with a single tap. Check out the video after the break.

tapngo

When you start your brand new Android 5.0 smartphone or tablet for the very first time you’ll be greeted by some initial setup instructions. Setting up Location information, WiFi connectivity and a few other things, but before you even get started they have a new “Tap N Go” that users will love, and you need to see. Overall the new setup process is clean, simple, and streamlined, but Tap % Go takes the cake.

The hassle of buying a new phone and transferring all your email accounts, apps, app data and game saves, contacts, or even rearranging all your icons on your home screens can be frustrating. We’ve all been there, and it’s no fun. With Android 5.0 Lollipop’s new Tap N Go, it’s all done in a matter of minutes, with a single tap. This is as hassle-free as it gets.

Tap & Go Automatic Restore

Android 5.0’s new Tap & Go feature uses NFC to make a connection, and it says Bluetooth is also on board to make a seamless transfer of all your information from one device to another. It draws the name from how it works, simply tap your own phone against the back of your new one, and that’s it. Then it does the rest. It pairs up, asks your old phone to accept, and begins transferring all your data.

We tried this from the Nexus 5 to the Nexus 7, and even from our Samsung Galaxy S5 to the Nexus 5 running Android 5.0 Lollipop and it worked like a charm. It’s worth noting that if you’re using the Google Now Launcher it will even populate all your app icons and widgets for you. Essentially mirroring your entire device and home-screens all with a single tap. Pretty convenient.

Without explaining much more, we’ll just let you see the magic happen yourself in our quick hands-on video below.

In our case, we simply had to tap the two, sign into our Google account, and that was it. Android 5.0 with Tap & Go did all the work from there on out. We had to agree to location services and opt-in (or out) of Google Now, but that’s it.

As you see from the video above and image below, you’re then taken to the regular home screen of your smartphone. From here all your apps are where they should be, icons and widgets are on the home screen but grayed out. This is because they aren’t on the device yet. Google automatically downloads and restores all your apps and data, and the circles show download progress, and the app icons appear once they’ve completed. Pretty neat.

Screen Shot 2014-10-17 at 1.07.55 PM

At the moment it isn’t completely clear how widely supported this feature will be, or if it will work exactly as you saw from the video above on all devices. That being said, it’s certainly a much better device restore feature than we had previously, and it does it all in a very simply and easy to understand manor.

Then of course there is always the regular manual restore just like previous Android versions, where you’ll be able to sign into your Google account of choice and proceed with your device setup. However, there’s something new here too. You can actually choose which device to restore from. Meaning if you have both a work and personal phone, you can choose which phone (or tablet) it restores. Making the process once again even easier than ever before.

Last but not least you can always do a clean install and start over fresh if you’d like, of course.

We’ve just received Android 5.0 Lollipop in the form of an early developer preview, so stay tuned for more details, hands-on videos, and information as we dig through everything that’s new. This is one feature buyers will be happy to see, and use.

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. john haggard

    10/21/2014 at 11:26 am

    your fffffffffffffffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  2. nicole

    11/24/2014 at 6:28 pm

    I can’t find tap n go. I am transferring Google nexus 5 to a new Google nexus 5

  3. Clayton

    04/29/2015 at 8:51 pm

    Thank you for the detailed post. I tried this with less success. Everything was the same except I was not asked to opt in or out of Google Now. After the restore, my apps were all downloaded, however, NONE of my homescreens, icon placements, widgets, or settings were restored… :-( Do you know why this might be?

    Is it possible the old device must be using the Google Now Launcher in order to transfer the settings, icons, widgets, homescreens, etc.?

  4. RevLauren

    09/30/2015 at 10:34 pm

    This article seems to be commingling two different scenarios: transferring data from an old phone to a new phone; restoring a single phone (after an FDR, for example). How does Tap and Go accomplish the latter. There’s nothing to tap. Also, this feature of NFC data transfer from old phone to new phone has been available for a long time on the Moto X devices, both 2013, and 2014, so what is “new” about this capability?

  5. @wittier (@wittier)

    10/14/2015 at 8:40 pm

    The writer is illiterate. The word “restore” means that you’re bringing the same phone back to where it was after reinstalling Android. The article is about transferring data from one phone to another.

    • JC

      04/25/2017 at 2:07 pm

      yup.

  6. Matt

    10/18/2015 at 12:12 pm

    My settings, icons, widgets, homescreens did not transfer either ),:

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