Apple's Schiller blasts Android on eve of Samsung's Galaxy S4 launch

Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller attacked Google's "fragmented" Android software and its biggest adopter, Samsung Electronics, a day before the Korean firm takes the wraps off its latest flagship smartphone in the United States.

 The attack by Apple's marketing chief on a rival, on the eve of the Samsung Galaxy S4's global premier in New York, underscores the extent of the pressure piled upon a company that once stood the undisputed leader of the smartphone arena, but ceded its crown to Samsung in 2012.

Mr Schiller, in an interview on Wednesday, told Reuters that Google's own research showed the vast majority of Android users were stuck on older versions of the software, and that Samsung's new phone itself may debut with a year-old operating system that will need updating.

"With their own data, only 16pc of Android users are on year-old version of the operating system," he said. "More than 50pc are still on software that is two years old. A really big difference."

Mr Schiller said fragmentation, or the host of customised versions of Android in the marketplace, poses a problem for consumers.

Every version of Android's operating system update has to be tested to ensure a good fit for a multiplicity of handset makers before it can be widely released by the handset makers, which slows updates. That's because some manufacturers, such as Amazon.com, employ heavily customised versions.