I’ll explain.
According to The State of Mobile Device Performance and Health: Q4 2016 report released by Blancco Technology Group, iOS devices have failed to prove their reliability for a while now.
iPhone 6 has been the worst performing iOS device consecutively for four quarters with the highest failure rate
“The iOS failure rate has consecutively increased quarter over quarter – from 15% in Q4 2015 to 25% Q1 2016 to 58% in Q2 2016 to 62% in Q3 2016. Although the iOS failure rate (62%) has since stabilized in Q4 2016, Apple is still playing catch up with Android (47%). Additionally, the iPhone 6 has been the worst performing iOS device consecutively for four quarters with the highest failure rate compared to other models – 25% in Q1 2016, 29% in Q2 2016, 13% in Q3 2016 and 15% in Q4 2016.”
According to the report, Samsung has the highest failure rate (16%) among Android device makers, a title it has held for five straight quarters (over a year!).
So what do they mean by “reliability”? Well, when your smartphone simply gives up and won’t wake up (a crash), when it stops working altogether, when it lags, when it can’t recognize the headphones you’ve just plugged in… that’s it being unreliable. Like a faithful servant, your really “smart” phone should serve you diligently every minute of the day without fail. From the look of things, iPhones haven’t been so good at doing just that. Even the latest ones. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, released towards the end of 2016, had 3% failure rate each, quite alarming for new devices when the survey was being conducted.
The Android devices we all love to bash? Well, they can pretty much hold their own. Their failure rate fell by over half between Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 when it stood at 35% from a high of 85%. A lot of this improvement can be attributed to the streamlining of some core Android apps like Google Play Services, installed on every Android device bar those sold in China, which now crashes less often (just 5%). However, the camera app, battery charge and USB glitches continue to be a source of pain for Android device users.
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