United Kingdom, Feb. 10 -- Bill Gates has described the late Steve Jobs as a "genius" when it came to user interface and product design.

The 69-year-old Microsoft co-founder admitted he was jealous of the former Apple head - who passed away in 2011 aged 56 - for having an "intuitive sense" for creating products with user-friendly designs, such as the iPhone.

Appearing on Yahoo Finance's 'Opening Bid' podcast, Gates said: "Steve was very different than I was, I mean, in terms of intuitive sense of a good user interface, and how you do design. He had that and I didn't - I envy how genius he was at that."

Even so, the tech boss said his former rival's biggest weakness was his lacking knowledge of source code, though conceded Jobs had the ...