You don't need to transfer photos, because they're automatically uploaded to Google Photos ASAP.

You don't need to transfer music if you're using Google Play Music (including the option to upload your own music), Spotify (has a similar options), or something else like that.

I'll give you application settings, but that's only because the applications didn't bother implementing the backup services.

Why on Earth should I have to use Google Photos or Google Play Music if I want to move content to a new phone? That would be quite the definition of lock-in, particularly when what we're talking about is moving non-system files.

You can redownload your photos and music from both services. You aren't locked in at all.

I'm curious how having to give the rights to my photographs over to Google to be able to transfer them wouldn't be locking me into the Google ecosystem?

I get it's easier, but that's not the point here.

How does it lock you into the Google ecosystem?

Not using local storage (and compromising on privacy, features and availability) isn't a satisfactory solution for inability to easily migrate local storage.

It looks like Google either doesn't care or deliberately cripples experience for users who don't go all-in on all their services (given that Maps explicitly refuses to save recent searches locally I'm think it's the latter).

I've migrated from Nexus 4 to 5 and it was a mess (Google Play is full of dodgy and incomplete 3rd party backup apps. Android File Transfer is slow and leaves partial copies behind when any error happens, and errors happen often, etc.)

> Not using local storage (and compromising on privacy, features and availability) isn't a satisfactory solution for inability to easily migrate local storage.

I could see your point when it comes to privacy, but the photos are still available locally as well. By the time you're replacing phone the photos will probably only be used for archival anyway.

Your solution is a bit ridiculous. Worldwide upload speeds are typically a tiny fraction of download speeds so you would wasting huge amounts of time for something that should be simple.

Case in point it took me a month to upload my music to iTunes Match (and it already has fingerprinting).

I feel like photos, videos, and music are the easiest things to transfer. Just plug the phone into your (or any) computer, copy the photo/video/music folders, and then dump them on the new device if you don't want to use one of Google's upload/download services.

Simple read access to the contents of an Android device was always one of the big "pluses" in my experience. Then if you find that too difficult for whatever reason, there are Google apps that do the same thing. The only bits that can be annoying are app settings as you mentioned. Even that has improved and I notice a lot of that stuff showing up when I sign into a new device. Still, I hope to see some improvement on that front in the future. Third party migration apps (like the one on my Moto X) can do it so Google should definitely offer something similar. It currently works for some settings/data but I'd hope they're working on adding support for more.

> Google only copies system settings and list of installed apps, but not "sd card" data with local music, photos, apps' settings or data.

Automatic app settings backup (to google drive) is finally coming to Android M [0]. Third party solutions have existed more or less forever, though the best ones require root. For the local music/photos stuff, is it really that hard to plug both phones into a computer and transfer stuff that way? It would take maybe an hour.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-m-makes-anoth...