Mac to Surface Assistant

“I like typing on my Surface while looking around.” Photo © Microsoft.

Ever so discreetly, Microsoft has released a new migration tool to help users transfer documents, photos and multimedia files from Macintosh to Surface. Data is copied to a Zip file, which is saved on the desktop to ease transfer to another device. This is nothing you couldn’t do yourself, of course, but the tool makes the process easier and less intimidating for the proverbial “Idiots”. Microsoft already has a “Making the switch” site, and the new tool seems to be an extension of it. In any case, no ground is being broken: Apple has been providing its own migration tools for moving data from Windows to Mac since at least 2011, with the OS X Lion (10,7), if memory serves. Last year, Microsoft claimed that more users were switching from Macs to Surface than ever before, but provided no evidence to that effect.

⇨ AppleInsider, “Microsoft creates tool to help Apple users migrate data from Mac to Surface.”

Update, 22 March: Microsoft has removed the tool from its servers. Perhaps it was not quite ready?