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iPhones and iPads Fail More Often Than Android Smartphones (softpedia.com) 176

An anonymous reader writes: The main question when picking a new phone is whether to choose an Android one or an iPhone. A new study coming from Blancco Technology Group sheds some light on which devices are the most reliable, based on reliability. The study entitled State of Mobile Device Performance and Health reveals the device failure rates by operating systems, manufacturers, models and regions, as well as the most common types of performance issues. The report reveals that in Q2 2016, iOS devices had a 58% failure rate, marking the first time that Apple's devices have a lower performance rate compared to Android. It seems that the iPhone 6 had the highest failure rate of 29%, followed by iPhone 6s and iPhone 6S Plus. Android smartphones had an overall failure rate of 35%, an improvement from 44% in Q1 2016. Samsung, Lenovo and LeTV were among the manufacturers with the weakest performance and higher failure rates. Samsung scored 26% in failure rate, while Motorola just 11%. The study also reveals that iOS devices fail more frequently in North America and Asia compared to Android. Specifically, the failure rate in North America is 59%, while in Asia 52%. The failures could be influenced by the fact that the quality of smartphones shipped around the world varies.
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iPhones and iPads Fail More Often Than Android Smartphones

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  • by gfxguy ( 98788 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:26PM (#52770855)

    A new study coming from Blancco Technology Group sheds some light on which devices are the most reliable, based on reliability.

    I shudder to think how they would otherwise determine which devices are the most reliable.

    • by saider ( 177166 )

      Returns while the device is under warranty?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:32PM (#52770901)

      I think reliability is a reliable index for reliably verifying the reliability of reliable devices. I rely on such reliable sources.

    • A Reliably Redundant Post!

    • Re:Good lord.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by michelcolman ( 1208008 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:53PM (#52771097)

      They have some weird math going on though. iOS devices have a 58% failure rate, and of those iOS devices the iPhone 6 has the highest rate with 29%.

      So the weighted average between 29% and a bunch of lower percentages is 58%?

      • Re:Good lord.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by chipschap ( 1444407 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:59PM (#52771139)

        The stats are dopey. 58% fail rate in what period of time? Did 58% fail in Q2 or whatever? Do 58% fail in the first two years? I can't make any sense of these stats and TFA is no help. What am I missing here?

        • Re:Good lord.... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Xest ( 935314 ) on Friday August 26, 2016 @06:50AM (#52774005)

          Now I'm usually one to jump on bad stats given that I took a further degree in stats, but the first line of TFA answers your question:

          "The study entitled State of Mobile Device Performance and Health focuses on the second quarter of 2016"

          58% of all iOS devices sounds way too high for sure, until you recognise their broad definition of failure which can include failing to connect to WiFi, app crashes and so on.

          So effectively the study is saying that in Q2 2016 58% of iOS devices suffered some sort of fault, but that fault might not actually be a big deal.

          Beyond that I didn't read the report because I couldn't be bothered to sign up even with my junk details, so I can't really comment on how accurate their methodology might be, and hence how accurate their results might be, but if you're interested it's here:

          http://info.blancco.com/state-... [blancco.com]

          I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that 58% of iOS devices suffered some kind of glitch in that period - all it would take is one buggy release of a popular app such as Facebook and the number is bound to shoot right up without it ever really being Apple's fault (beyond arguably not better vetting the quality of updates of apps perhaps).

          When I Googled the report though, the first result was actually the 2016 Q1 report, where the results are the exact opposite:

          http://www2.blancco.com/en/res... [blancco.com]

          I suspect therefore one of two things, either it is as I say and one broken major software release on a device or set of devices can greatly sway the stats in a quarter due to their broad definition of "fault" or they're just making these numbers up as a clickbait to try and get you to sign up to build up their userbase for monetisation purposes through ad revenue or similar.

          I'm swaying towards the second, not that I'm a cynic or anything :)

          • I suspect therefore one of two things, either it is as I say and one broken major software release on a device or set of devices can greatly sway the stats in a quarter due to their broad definition of "fault" or they're just making these numbers up as a clickbait to try and get you to sign up to build up their userbase for monetisation purposes through ad revenue or similar.

            I'm swaying towards the second, not that I'm a cynic or anything :)

            I've got to second your cynicism. The stats are worthless for just about any practical use.

      • by anegg ( 1390659 )

        Perhaps the answer to this conundrum will be found to lie with the source of the funding for the study. The study certainly seems to be measuring things strangely. I don't see any other way to judge the portion of the report you found fault with as anything but "math challenged" - "Out of the 58 percent of iOS devices that failed, iPhone 6 had the highest failure rate (29 percent), followed by iPhone 6S (23 percent) and iPhone 6S Plus (14 percent)."

        "Failure" must be being measured as the discovery of a f

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When I worked for AT&T Wireless (Pre-cingular), the least reliable devices were always the cheapest devices (Which were always flip-phones, and nearly universally LG phones, though Samsung was #2 in the failure rate, however nothing failed more than the Motorola V60 series)

      So reliability tends to downtick every time a new device is released. It's a question of how long that downtick is. Like you can pretty much frame all Android devices as unreliable if you use a 3 year window, due to failed firmware up

    • A new study coming from Blancco Technology Group sheds some light on which devices are the most reliable, based on reliability.

      I shudder to think how they would otherwise determine which devices are the most reliable.

      The device that finishes recursion first?

  • Apparently they only sell it in Asia, so that means it has a 52 percent fail rate, right?

  • by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:30PM (#52770889)

    I'm not an "apple boi" by any stretch of the imagination but c'mon -

    "The main issues that owners of iOS smartphones face is not being able to connect to a WiFi network, dropped connections, slow speeds and incorrect password prompts. Android smartphone users struggled with camera issues, battery charging, touch screen issues, app crashes, syncing problems and random reboots."

    Apple has wifi issues (I've encountered them too) - Android has toush screen issues, random reboots (random reboots?!?!) - therefore Android is better WTF?!

    "The study also revealed that 50% of iOS applications crashes in Q2, compared to 23% of Android apps."

    ok but that's not necessarily and iOS problem per se - (I don't blame Microsoft for Adobe's lousy QA or, heh, iTunes crashes...) So what's the details here...

    "Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were among the top apps to crash on iOS, while Google Play Services, Google Contacts Sync and Address Book crashed the most on Android."

    Facebook crashes on iOS but Address Book crashes on Android - ergo Android is better?! Again... WTF!?

    • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:45PM (#52771031)
      "Apple has wifi issues (I've encountered them too) - Android has toush screen issues, random reboots (random reboots?!?!) - therefore Android is better WTF?!" The article is stating that these problems occur more often on iOS vs Android, not that these problems occur on every phone. They are just listing the types of problems, not stating that one type of problem is better than another.
      • by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @04:05PM (#52771587)

        "The article is stating that these problems occur more often on iOS vs Android, not that these problems occur on every phone"

        The title of the article is:

        "iPhones and iPads Fail More Often Than Android Smartphones – Study"

        This means the authors of the article want you to think that Androids are better than iPhones.

        Yet a Wifi connectivity issue is given the same weight as a touch screen failure or a random reboot because those problems only affect 1/3 of Android phones whereas 2/3 of iphone users have wifi connectivity problems.

        What's the point of an Apples (heh) to oranges comparison other than the click-baity title then?

        There's no real information here. Just massaged statistics for an ad hit. It's worthless for a comparison and, worse, the raw data doesn't make any sense in the article either so it's doubly worthless.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The whole idea of comparing "Androids" to "iPhones" is idiotic anyway.

          There are thousands of Android devices running many variations of the OS on hardware costing from tens to thousands of dollars, with 2.5cm to 150cm+ screens. The iPhone 4 had a defective antenna design, leading to a 100% failure rate without the rubber, and has by far the worst failure mode in that Apple Maps is so bad it can actually kill you. [bgr.com]

          • The iPhone 4 had a defective antenna design, leading to a 100% failure rate without the rubber

            Actually, no. It was a stupid antenna design, and a legitimate problem, but it wasn't nearly that bad. It varied by individual phone (I could manage to get a one-brick/dot degradation by licking my finger and putting it hard on the sensitive spot on mine), and even the first report I saw was a result of testing three phones and finding one with a problem. Then I saw a lot of media making it sound a lot worse t

    • Apple has wifi issues (I've encountered them too) - Android has toush screen issues, random reboots (random reboots?!?!) - therefore Android is better WTF?!

      The WTF here is your suggestion that your personal experience and what you've personally read in forums trumps an actual study on the topic.

      Facebook crashes on iOS but Address Book crashes on Android - ergo Android is better?! Again... WTF!?

      That's not what they are saying. They are just making a statement about the apps that crash the most on each platform. The quotes stats are based on overall crashes across all apps.

      • I think what the poster was suggesting is that including 3rd party app crashes in this statistic in the same way as battery failure may be a bit misleading given the overall theme... For instance did they add weight to the fact that iOS has more apps for which to crash and that people use their iOS devices more than people use Android? This could be important so maybe a weighted per app MTBF would be a better approach. Or anything else as arbitrary as the original study. Now that I think about it, perhaps r

        • by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @03:16PM (#52771269)

          I think what the poster was suggesting is that including 3rd party app crashes in this statistic in the same way as battery failure may be a bit misleading given the overall theme... For instance did they add weight to the fact that iOS has more apps for which to crash and that people use their iOS devices more than people use Android? This could be important so maybe a weighted per app MTBF would be a better approach. Or anything else as arbitrary as the original study. Now that I think about it, perhaps replacement should count as failure...

          There are more Apps in Android's app store than in Apple's: 2.2M apps for Android, 2M apps for Apple.

          http://www.statista.com/statis... [statista.com]

          I couldn't find a source for "people use their iOS devices more than people use Android", can you cite that?

          • I couldn't find a source for "people use their iOS devices more than people use Android", can you cite that?

            I'm sure it's true if you count all Android phones, since some of those are $20 phones purchased to sit in a drawer for occasional use, and many of them don't come with a data plan so can't be used away from wifi.

        • Nothing you say matters unless they treated the two platforms differently when it came to gathering their "failure" rate. Both platforms are pretty much interchangeable across their user base so it's as close to an apples to apples are you are going to get.

          I think what the poster was suggesting is that including 3rd party app crashes in this statistic

          It's a user satisfaction survey, not a rating of the stability of the underlying OS. I don't think users care why their apps are crashing only that they are.

          For instance did they add weight to the fact that iOS has more apps for which to crash and that people use their iOS devices more than people use Android?

          I have no idea what that means. iOS devices have more apps installed? There are more iOS apps over

      • Why are they calling an app crash a 'device failure' on either platform, unless the app is distributed with the device?

        Why is Apple responsible for shitty code written by a 3rd party, which may or may not be a proper version of the app for the installed OS? Why is Google?

        Should we start blaming Intel when Adobe applications inevitably crash now, or should we continue to blame Adobe for not caring enough to actually QA?

        • Why are they calling an app crash a 'device failure' on either platform, unless the app is distributed with the device?

          Perhaps because when it comes to user perception it is a device failure. I don't think the average use cares why things don't work.

          Why is Apple responsible for shitty code written by a 3rd party

          That's not the point. The article is just reporting stats regarding user experience. You are imagining finger pointing at Apple. It's not. It's finger pointing at the experience of using the device.

          But anyway, sometimes app stability has to do w/ the stability of the platform + services it offers. It's not always app coding errors that result in crashes. It also has to do w/ the

    • Apple has wifi issues (I've encountered them too) - Android has toush screen issues, random reboots (random reboots?!?!) - therefore Android is better WTF?!

      Device workey, vs device no workey. That's all. It doesn't matter if the phone can't connect to my wifi network, or bursts into flames and sets my dog on fire. Either way it's being sent back for replacement.

    • by MrKrillls ( 3858631 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @05:12PM (#52771997)
      I'm no Apple fan either. I love to take a shot at Apple any chance I get, however the math here is so bad I can't make sense of it. First, the article uses the word "fail" which I associate with complete loss of function, bricking, dead, unrevivable...so I thought the premise was dead iphones vs dead androids. No. Just how many were not perfect. 100% of cell phones are imperfect. it's a tie folks.
    • by cfalcon ( 779563 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @06:11PM (#52772297)

      I'm glad you posted this, because the fact that facebook sucks at supporting ios is not Apple's bad. It's also not relevant to those of us that either don't use facebook, or don't use their mobile app. Why use facebook as a metric, and not, say, some arbitrary other third party app? Statistics are lies because statisticians are liars!

  • It seems that the iPhone 6 had the highest failure rate of 29%, followed by iPhone 6s and iPhone 6S Plus. Android smartphones had an overall failure rate of 35%

    So is /. bad at basic comprehension or basic arithmetic?

    • I'm assuming that's 29% of all iOS device failures were from the iPhone 6. I'd explain it with pies but then I'd want a pie.
      • That statement seems to imply that 29% of all iPhone 6 phones failed, and somewhat lower % of 6s and 6s+ failed. If one averages that, it will be a number less than 29%. Toss in 5 and 4, and that failure rate would decrease. In the meantime, 35% of all Android smartphones failed. How on earth would iOS devices fail more than Android?

        Note that I'm talking about this study, not about any real data. My only phone that once failed on my was my Lumia Ikon - the battery stopped charging

        • It doesn't imply that, it directly states it. It states that the iPhone 6 failure rate is 29%, which is the highest failure rate (among what set of things is unknown).

          • No, it states that all Androids have a 35% failure rate. If any of them are 35% failure rate. Which is still higher than the iPhone 6 number of 29%
    • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:45PM (#52771029)

      So is /. bad at basic comprehension or basic arithmetic?

      No, the math failure was the fault of the linked article's author, Alexandra Vaidos.

      Not to mention that calculating a metric based on applications not always launching and referring to that as the phone's "failure rate" is rather ludicrous. Plus if iPhone or Android apps were truly that unreliable, nobody would be using them - the numbers are simply unbelievable.

      But, in the end, a bunch of us clicked on the story link... so Ms. Vaidos accomplished her goal.

      • by tgv ( 254536 )

        But some /. editor read that, copied that, possibly discussed that, and hit the publish button without thinking: how can the worst failure rate be lower than the average failure rate?

    • The worst iPhone has a failure rate of 29%, but the average iPhone is twice as bad at 58%. Don't ask...

  • by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:36PM (#52770947)

    The main question when picking a new phone is whether to choose an Android one or an iPhone.

    Somewhere a group of Windows phones are sitting on bar stools, all on their 10th shot, wondering... "Where did I go wrong?"

  • That article is so small, it is hard to even argue about what is says. Not enough information to even properly understand what it is trying to present.
  • by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:39PM (#52770989)

    A 58% failure rate? In one quarter...that's three months? Or is it that the article is as of Q2 2016...in which case I'd want to know the overall period covered, and the definition of "failure." If it's a 3-year period and replacing the phone with an upgrade is classifying it as having "failed," then I could see how this rate would be possible...but out of purely anecdotal insight from the fact that nearly everyone I know (and everyone I work with) has an iPhone, I don't see how this can be right.

    But what's REALLY odd is that 58% is an average of the various IOS devices, right? So how is it possible for the overall rate to be 58% if the device with the highest rate of failure only had a rate of 29%? How do you average 29 with any combination of lower numbers to get 58?

    Straight from the website from which you can download the actual report (linked in the TFA):

    Out of the 58 percent of iOS devices that failed, iPhone 6 had the highest failure rate (29 percent), followed by iPhone 6S (23 percent) and iPhone 6S Plus (14 percent).

    When I try to solve for 58% using those numbers, Excel just gives me the Skeptical African Kid Meme. [memegenerator.net]

    • A 58% failure rate?

      I think it's how they are defining "failure". My guess is that it's if a user experienced a problem of any sort, that's a failure.

  • Clickbait (duh) (Score:4, Informative)

    by krisbrowne42 ( 549049 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:48PM (#52771055)
    ...which is no real surprise... Frankly none of us would even be responding if we thought the article, or /.'s posting of it, was any match to reality.
  • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:54PM (#52771099)

    None of this shit makes any sense!

    The main question when picking a new phone is whether to choose an Android one or an iPhone.

    I'd wager most people are already tied to an ecosystem. For iOS people it's a question of "When's the new one coming out?" or "Do I want the big one or the small one?". For Android people it's "Do I pick some random cheap one or just buy the Samsung Galaxy again?".

    A new study coming from Blancco Technology Group sheds some light on which devices are the most reliable, based on reliability.

    Odd, I usually base reliability reports on mouth feel and buoyancy.

    The study entitled State of Mobile Device Performance and Health reveals the device failure rates by operating systems, manufacturers, models and regions, as well as the most common types of performance issues.

    That would be neat info to have.

    The report reveals that in Q2 2016, iOS devices had a 58% failure rate, marking the first time that Apple's devices have a lower performance rate compared to Android.

    I wonder how they define "failure rate", maybe I'll read TFA to find out. Wait, "lower performance rate"? WTF is that? Do you mean "higher failure rate". I wonder if this is the fault of the dumbass submitter, TFA, or the actual report. And "first time"? Odd, I've never heard of a prior time that "Blancco Technology Group" released such report. Maybe they're an up-and-comer I should start paying attention to.

    It seems that the iPhone 6 had the highest failure rate of 29%, followed by iPhone 6s and iPhone 6S Plus.

    Wait, if the highest failure rate is 29%, how do we end up with a 58% failure rate for iOS devices? What subset or subcategory does "iPhone 6" fall under? What "iOS devices" are excluded from that category? Clearly, some significant iOS devices with high failure rates (58% or higher) had to be excluded from the subset/subcategory that gave us the "highest failure rate" of 29%.

    Android smartphones had an overall failure rate of 35%, an improvement from 44% in Q1 2016.

    So 29% is higher than 35% now? WTF is going on?

    Samsung, Lenovo and LeTV were among the manufacturers with the weakest performance and higher failure rates. Samsung scored 26% in failure rate, while Motorola just 11%.

    Didn't we just establish an overall failure rate of 35% for Android? Clearly some manufacturer is hitting higher than that, and it's not Samsung. Why would you call out Samsung and not the worst offender?

    The study also reveals that iOS devices fail more frequently in North America and Asia compared to Android.

    Well, we established that overall, with the "iOS devices had a 58% failure rate" bit at the top and the comments about how Android's failure rate is lower, depending on what contradictory numbers we're looking at.

    Specifically, the failure rate in North America is 59%, while in Asia 52%. The failures could be influenced by the fact that the quality of smartphones shipped around the world varies.

    Yes, the fact that quality varies in different regions could be due to the fact that the quality of phones varies across different regions! Unless they're suggesting that "quality" and "failure rates" are not directly comparable for the purposes of this study. The only way that could be true is if they didn't control for cause of failure, so "quality" here could mean something along the lines of "survives an American sitting on it" versus "survives an Asian sitting on it".

  • Define "fail" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sneeka2 ( 782894 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @02:59PM (#52771141)

    Is it anywhere explained what exactly "fail" means? Apparently more than an outright "phone bricked", it also includes software issues of all kinds, including Facebook crashing. There are so many problems with including such numbers that an entire meta study is necessary to normalize the resulting numbers into something comparable, which this article doesn't even begin to do.

    Unless and until the exact criteria are published, this is worthless horseshit.

  • by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @03:04PM (#52771179) Homepage

    If you told me I had to read an entire random article off Softpedia's news page, I'd be disappointed and sad. But if I had to, there's at least 3 more interesting articles than this one (I just checked) right now. If you told me "it has to be one that will generate some cheap fanboy rage", I guess this one would be closer to the top and maybe I might check it out.

    But once I did I'd see it was complete nonsense garbage and start shopping for a new one. It's unreadable - I have no idea what they're even claiming in half their sentences - but at very least it's clear their conclusion is way out of step with the data they're reasoning from.

    I still read Slashdot out of some weird old habit, but the interesting finds are getting few and far between. It has become an anti-aggregator, finding the least interesting, poorest-written articles on sites that I wouldn't bother going to.

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @03:12PM (#52771237)

    One vector of "unreliability" the article talked about was iPhones "failing to connect to WiFi".

    Let's just put aside the problem with equating network reliability with hardware reliability... there's a big difference in HOW both devices connect to WiFi, by design.

    Apple in the last year or so changed iOS so that it will prefer to stay on a cell connection if it seems like the WiFi is going to be flaky or unreliable.

    So the "WiFi failing to connect" is a result of the software making the network connection (you know, the whole reason why you are trying to connect to the WiFi in the first place?) MORE reliable for the user, not less... we all know by now sometimes the cell network is vastly better than a sketchy WiFi node.

  • Only issue I've really faced is a battery that expanded, and the local non-Apple shop that specializes in Apple products replaced it really cheaply. No other issues that I can think of since I got my first one five and a half years ago. I'm even running their Beta iOS 10 and it runs amazingly well.
  • It's not a huge surprise that the reliability of Apple widgets isn't appreciably better than high end Android gizmos; Apple is hardly the only company in the world that knows how to shove a bunch of solid state hardware into a tight space; and to the degree they are atypically skilled at it they usually end up focusing on extra skinniness and similar aesthetic considerations that don't necessarily enhance reliability.

    What is surprising is that 'Android devices' as a whole would perform so well. It is the
  • I have a cheap LG that I drop periodically. Works as poorly as the day it was new (it's a $100 Android from 2014 so what can I say?). Replaced my kid's iPhone three times as it just kept getting slower and slower. Cores burning out maybe?
  • And who measures it?

    Does this mean I just forgot my password?

  • I am totally against determining the most reliable phone in terms of reliability.
  • by sdguero ( 1112795 ) on Thursday August 25, 2016 @06:41PM (#52772415)
    It's complete garbage from some kind of bullshit mobile marketing company: http://download.blancco.com/do... [blancco.com]
  • The main question when picking a new phone is whether to choose an Android one or an iPhone.

    Not really. Based purely on market share, the main question is whether to get a Samsung or not.

  • For me arguing about IOS and Android, Linux and Windows for me is a bit like some mechanics arguing about who has the best spanner. Who cares, just use the tools that work for you and move on I say.
  • The results of this may be true, but if so, the results are quite sure to be solely based on average type of user and perhaps casing material.

    Also iPhones are more likely to be used by people who couldn't be bothered to make a big decision out of their smartphone purchase, they just get what everybody else has and what they constantly hear about in the news and leave it at that. Hence many iPhones in the hands of people who aren't really thinking twice or being aware of the basics of treating hardware in a

  • This report is very strange and so is the Slashdot summary. This is not a comparison of hardware platforms, i.e. wether Apple or Samsung phones actually experience some form of hardware failure more often. Instead the report focuses on software issues, like application crashes, which form the bulk of "failures". Also reported are difficulties in accessing Wifi or poor sound quality using Bluetooth.

    Their use of statistics is also questionable. Their graphics are misleading.

    Take this report with a grain of sa

  • Unless a platform is absolutely trouble free, quality of service is equally important.

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