Mobile Device Health Report Details Bleak Data On Apple iDevices Failing And Crashing Far More Often Than Android Devices
One of the common arguments in favor of the iPhone and iOS devices in general is that "it just works." It's an oversimplified retort often thrown around by people who favor iOS gadgets over Android equivalents, but is it also an inaccurate one? A new report by Blanco Technology Group suggests that in reality Android devices work more often.
There is a fair amount of surprising data contained in The State of Mobile Device Performance Health Report, which is an in-depth quarterly review of global mobile device trends, including diagnostic testing, performance issues, and outright failures. It begins with the startling claim iOS devices had an overall failure rate of 62 percent worldwide in the third quarter of 2016, compared to 47 percent for Android devices.
Those numbers seem high for both platforms, though the failure rate doesn't just look at hardware gone bad. It also takes into account situations such as an app crashing, which the report found to occur on at least once on 65 percent of the iOS devices tested in Q3. Android fared much better with only 25 percent of Android devices reporting a crashed app.
To be fair, the data is a little bit skewed because it was collected both before and after a major software update to iOS, that being iOS 10. The initial update bricked some devices, and in other cases it might have directly or indirectly caused a reported error or crash.
Source: Blanco Technology Group
"One common complaint among those Apple users who installed the iOS 10 update, for example, was an increase in temperature of the device—essentially overheating—when devices are charging. One reason for this is that when users first download and install iOS 10, it updates apps in the background. As a result, the update eats into the device’s battery power and life and may cause the device to heat up more than usual," the report states.
In addition to overheating, updating the could cause apps to crash if the user is running an outdated version of a particular app. That might explain why the data shows apps crashing more often on iOS than Android, though it's still disheartening that it happened three times more often.
The report also suggests that it matters which phone you own, a finding that isn't all that surprising. But what is a little shocking is that newer iOS devices tended to fail more often than older ones. The failure rate hit a high of 13 percent on iPhone 6 handsets, followed by 9 percent on iPhone 6s and iPhone 5S. After that it was the iPhone 6 Plus (5 percent), iPhone 6s Plus (4 percent), iPhone 5 CDMA (3 percent), iPhone 5 GSM (2 percent), iPhone 4S (2 percent), iPad Air 2 (2 percent), and iPad Air (1 percent).
Source: Blanco Technology Group
On the Android side, Samsung took the undesired top spot with a failure rate of 11 percent if breaking it down by manufacturer. If going by phone model instead, the LeEco Le 2 sat at top with a 13 percent failure rate, followed by a pair of Xiaomi devices (Redmi 3S and Redmi Note 3) at 9 percent each.
One interesting aside is that app popularity matters. Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game that took the world by storm, was a major contributor to both platforms crashing. It also was a major battery drain. However, it was Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook that crashed most often on iOS, and IMS Service, Address Book, and Google Play Services on Android.
Curious for more stats? Hit the source link to grab the full PDF report.
There is a fair amount of surprising data contained in The State of Mobile Device Performance Health Report, which is an in-depth quarterly review of global mobile device trends, including diagnostic testing, performance issues, and outright failures. It begins with the startling claim iOS devices had an overall failure rate of 62 percent worldwide in the third quarter of 2016, compared to 47 percent for Android devices.
Those numbers seem high for both platforms, though the failure rate doesn't just look at hardware gone bad. It also takes into account situations such as an app crashing, which the report found to occur on at least once on 65 percent of the iOS devices tested in Q3. Android fared much better with only 25 percent of Android devices reporting a crashed app.
To be fair, the data is a little bit skewed because it was collected both before and after a major software update to iOS, that being iOS 10. The initial update bricked some devices, and in other cases it might have directly or indirectly caused a reported error or crash.
Source: Blanco Technology Group
"One common complaint among those Apple users who installed the iOS 10 update, for example, was an increase in temperature of the device—essentially overheating—when devices are charging. One reason for this is that when users first download and install iOS 10, it updates apps in the background. As a result, the update eats into the device’s battery power and life and may cause the device to heat up more than usual," the report states.
In addition to overheating, updating the could cause apps to crash if the user is running an outdated version of a particular app. That might explain why the data shows apps crashing more often on iOS than Android, though it's still disheartening that it happened three times more often.
The report also suggests that it matters which phone you own, a finding that isn't all that surprising. But what is a little shocking is that newer iOS devices tended to fail more often than older ones. The failure rate hit a high of 13 percent on iPhone 6 handsets, followed by 9 percent on iPhone 6s and iPhone 5S. After that it was the iPhone 6 Plus (5 percent), iPhone 6s Plus (4 percent), iPhone 5 CDMA (3 percent), iPhone 5 GSM (2 percent), iPhone 4S (2 percent), iPad Air 2 (2 percent), and iPad Air (1 percent).
Source: Blanco Technology Group
On the Android side, Samsung took the undesired top spot with a failure rate of 11 percent if breaking it down by manufacturer. If going by phone model instead, the LeEco Le 2 sat at top with a 13 percent failure rate, followed by a pair of Xiaomi devices (Redmi 3S and Redmi Note 3) at 9 percent each.
One interesting aside is that app popularity matters. Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game that took the world by storm, was a major contributor to both platforms crashing. It also was a major battery drain. However, it was Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook that crashed most often on iOS, and IMS Service, Address Book, and Google Play Services on Android.
Curious for more stats? Hit the source link to grab the full PDF report.
