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Google offers guide to help iOS users switch to Android

Designed for iPhone and iPad users, the new Switch website explains everything from transferring photos and music to setting up email and messaging.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
Don Reisinger
2 min read

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Android's Google Play store. Google

Google has launched a website called Switch that has one goal in mind: educate Apple iPhone and iPad users on how they can easily move their data to Android-based devices.

Essentially a manual, it describes how owners of Apple devices, which run the iOS mobile operating system, can take photos and music and bring them to devices running Google's Android, as well as transfer contacts, set-up email and find apps that they were using on their iOS-based devices.

While the site is somewhat small in its scope, it's an obvious shot at Apple. The site provides detailed instructions on getting content from one device to another and touts how "simple" it is to transfer that information.

Apple and Google have been in a war of words -- and a battle for customers -- over the last several years with each side hammering the other for seeming shortfalls. Apple at a special press event last week took aim at Android's alleged fragmentation, pointing out that the platform is having trouble getting users onto a single version of the software. Google, meanwhile, tends to focus on the benefits of Android and features where it believes its product stands out.

Google's Android has about a 51 percent share of the US market when it comes to smartphone platforms, according to a report last month from research firm ComScore. Apple has slightly more than 42 percent of the market.

The iPhone maker last month launched its own guide on how to switch from Android to iOS. Like Google, Apple provides directions on how to make the move and explains how it believes the switch is easy.

Neither Apple nor Google immediately responded to a request for comment.