Google's Eric Schmidt: Android has "a much more intuitive interface" than iPhone

Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, may not be as well known as some senior executives at other tech giants - such as Microsoft's Steve Ballmer or Apple's Tim Cook - but when it comes to talking up his company's products and belittling its rivals, he's up there with the best of them.

In 2011, he berated Microsoft for a lack of innovation and, a few months later, accused it of using scare tactics to bully device manufacturers into patent licensing deals because Microsoft was "scared of the success of Android". Just last month, he claimed that Android is "more secure than the iPhone" - a comment that actually drew some derisory laughter from the assembled audience.

Schmidt has been at it again, this time in a post on Google+ entitled 'Eric's Guide: Converting to Android from iPhone'. In the post, he says that "many of [his] iPhone friends are converting to Android", and includes a step-by-step guide to moving from Apple's mobile platform to Google's. "Like the people who moved from PCs to Macs and never switched back," he says, "you will switch from iPhone to Android and never switch back as everything will be in the cloud, backed up, and there are so many choices for you."

In his guide, he says that for those transferring photos from an iPhone to their new Android handset, "it's probably easiest to backup your iPhone photos to the Mac, but not copy the old photos to the Android phone." But what if you want to have your old photos with you on your new device? Schmidt's suggestion: "If the old photos are important, send them to Gmail and download [them] into the Android phone, or upload them to Google+."

But the most contentious comments are those in which he makes comparisons between Android and iOS. He says that "the latest high-end phones from Samsung (Galaxy S4), Motorola (Verizon Droid Ultra) and the Nexus 5 (for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) have better screens, are faster, and have a much more intuitive interface" than the iPhone. Bold words indeed.

He additionally claims that such devices "are a great Christmas present to an iPhone user!", a statement that many iPhone users have already disagreed with, including some commenters on 9to5Mac.

He also offers "some general advice", telling users to "be sure to use Chrome, not Safari; its [sic] safer and better in so many ways."