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Thinking about switching from iOS to Android? Let Eric Schmidt help.

Google chair Eric Schmidt has penned a primer for anyone thinking about ditching their Apple device for one powered by Google's Android OS.

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Reuters
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt gestures during an interactive session with group of students at a technical university in Yangon, Myanmar, earlier this year.
  • By Matthew Shaer

Eric Schmidt: businessman, billionaire, tech columnist. 

Yesterday, in a post on his Google+ profile, Mr. Schmidt took a break from his boardroom duties as executive chairman of Google to pen a lengthy document he called "Eric’s Guide: Converting to Android from iPhone." 

"Like the people who moved from PCs to Macs and never switched back, 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," Schmidt writes. "80 percent of the world, in the latest surveys, agrees on Android." (We're guessing Schmidt is referring to an IDC report that indicates Android accounted for 81 percent of global shipments in the most recent fiscal quarter.) 

Over the next 700-odd words, Schmidt covered everything from setting up a new Android device – "make sure the software on the Android phone is updated to the latest version (i.e. 4.3 or 4.4)" – to backing up old iPhone photos before shuttling them over to the Android tablet or smartphone. And he didn't hesitate to throw a couple gratuitous punches in Apple's direction: "Be sure to use Chrome, not Safari; its safer and better in so many ways," he wrote. 

The complete document is here. 

Way back in May, Google announced that it had reached 900 million Android activations; a few months later, in September, the company hit the billion mark. According to comScore, as of September, Android was the most popular smart phone operating system in the US, with a more than 51 percent of the market. By comparison, Apple's iOS had a 40.6 percent market share. 

Both Apple and Google, of course, have likely been helped by the continuing implosion of the once-omnipresent BlackBerry, which announced this month that it would not – as had been widely expected – pursue a sale. 

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