Does Apple make things hard on defecters? Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Android users have been jumping ship to iPhone 6s at an unprecedented rate, but as per a new report, Apple is being pressured to create a tool that would make it simpler for former iOS users to transfer their data from iPhone to their new Android device.

Google apps are pre-installed on the Galaxy S6. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

After years of examining the Android operating system, the European Commission has launched a formal antitrust investigation into claims that Google unfairly forces competitors into bundling its own apps on their devices.

Google has reached a tentative agreement with the European Commission following a three-year antitrust investigation into how it displays search results in Europe. As part of the agreement, the company will display search results from three of its competitors — such as Yahoo! and Bing — alongside results that promote its own services.

By reaching this agreement, Google has escaped a fine of up to $5 billion, or 10 percent of its revenue from 2012.

Europeans will next year be able to take their smartphones anywhere within the EU and enjoy calls, texts, and data without paying a penny more than they do at home. Expensive roaming fees are set to be scrapped by July 1, 2014, after the European Commission voted to fast-track a major overhaul of telecoms regulation.

The European Commission’s Vice President for Competition Policy, Joaquín Almunia, has confirmed that it will charge Samsung “very soon” in an antitrust patent case after the Korean electronics giant broke competition rules by filing patent-infringement lawsuits against Apple. Samsung has been under investigation since January for a possible breach of antitrust rules, and earlier this week, it dropped all of its injunction requests against Apple in Europe.