Where we were before this
samla.ai launched on the App Store and stayed there for a while, which was the right call for a small team building the cataloging half of a product. It was also a limit we heard about constantly, and usually in the same shape: two people in one house, one collection, one phone that could see it.
A collection app is unusually bad at being single-platform. Collections are shared: a record shelf belongs to a household, the boxes in the attic belong to whoever ends up sorting them, and the person who wants to catalog the garage is not necessarily the person holding the iPhone.
The global picture makes the point on its own. In July 2026 StatCounter put Android at 68.36 percent of mobile operating system use worldwide against 31.6 percent for iOS. Sweden runs the other way round in the same month, at 58.82 percent iOS and 41.17 percent Android, which is the honest local version of the same argument: four in ten phones here could not install the app at all.
What is the same?
Nearly everything, and that was the point of building it this way. The Android app is the same app rather than a reduced companion.
- Camera-first cataloging: photograph an object and the details fill themselves in
- Collection rooms, storage places and place photos
- Look up mode and the Look up box for pricing things you do not own
- The review queue, free on every plan
- Sharing an item as a public web page, free on every plan
- Publishing to Discogs, Tradera and eBay, and classified ads, on Pro and Ultra
What happens to my collection when I switch?
Nothing, which is the answer you want. The collection lives with your account rather than with the phone, so signing in on an Android device shows everything you cataloged on an iPhone, in the same rooms and the same places.
That also means a household can put samla.ai on whatever phones it already owns and share one catalog through a family space, which is what people were asking for when they asked for Android.
What about my subscription?
The plan belongs to your samla.ai account, so it follows you across devices. Who bills you depends on where you subscribed: an upgrade bought in the iPhone app is billed by Apple through the App Store, one bought on the web is billed through Stripe, and a Google Play subscription is billed by Google. You manage a subscription where you bought it.
FAQ
Do I need a new account?
No. Sign in with the account you already have and your collection is there.
Is the Android app behind on features?
It is the same app from the same codebase, so features arrive together rather than one platform at a time.
Can I move my subscription from Apple to Google?
The plan follows your account either way, so there is nothing you need to move. If you want to change who bills you, cancel where you subscribed and resubscribe where you would rather pay.
Which Android versions are supported?
The Play listing shows the current requirement for your device, and Play will tell you before you install if a device is not supported.
