Eric Schmidt’s Easy, Four-Step Guide to Switching From iPhone to Android

The holidays are here! And Eric Schmidt, ever the evangelist, wants to bring in the season with a wave of conversions.

Natch, Google’s chairman penned a handy-dandy guide for prospective smartphone shoppers. It’s for the millions who may already be well-versed in the art of iPhone, but still need some schooling in the ways of Android.

In perfect not-so-subtle form, Schmidt not only proselytizes switching to an Android phone from your i-device, he gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to do so.

For Schmidt — who plays the part of tech-support-cum-pitchman rather well — his biggest selling point is certainly a smart one: Unlike Apple, Google knows cloud services. And for those entrenched in Apple’s ecosystem, it’s not terribly difficult to export all your data over to the Googleverse.

“80% of the world, in the latest surveys, agrees on Android,” he wrote. (I assume that he’s pointing to this Gartner study, published a few weeks ago.)

It’s a cute, clever way to take a dig at the competition while also providing something useful — a reference point and FAQ rather than pure braggadocio.

Schmidt isn’t entirely above throwing a few explicit elbows, though. He makes sure to let readers know that Google’s Chrome browser is “safer and better in so many ways” than Apple’s Safari.