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Study Finds iPhone Twice As Reliable As BlackBerry
An anonymous reader writes "As reported at TechCrunch, 'The iPhone is twice as reliable as the BlackBerry after one year of ownership, a new study by SquareTrade finds. SquareTrade, which sells extra warranties for cell phones and other devices, looked at the failure rates of 15,000 phones covered under its plans. The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the BlackBerry and 16.2 percent for the Treo.' The full report (pdf) can be found at the SquareTrade site."
What is considered a malfunction? And perhaps having the latest and greatest object of the year inspires people to treat the phone with a little more care?
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Sounds heavily biased.
There are plenty of people who would wait until there was more than one problem with their iPhone before calling it in for repairs. But those with a blackberry might be more quick to respond to problems.
Did the study really only count the number of times someone sent their phone in for repairs, or the actual defects in the hardware?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
I'm having a boring day, but am now looking forward to reading the excuses from the apple haters. bring on the comedy gold!
Is it because iphone users are more careful with the iphone, not wanting to break their purchase, or use it out of fear of breaking, or use it because it would involve removing it from its shrine?
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I wonder if this also takes into account how many iPhones are sent back to Apple for some type of repair. Seems like a poorly done study.
11.2 % malfunction rate of electronics ? sound like 11.2% kids dropped it.
Hopefully we'll see the G1 next year.
I have and carry both a Blackberry for work, and an iPhone because I wanted something that wasn't under the control of IT overlords. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who carries a Blackberry in the default plastic holster and drops it onto the floor at least once every few weeks... and it's got nothing to protect it from that dive. My iPhone, however, being my personal property, does get better care. It's usually in a case in a pocket, and only small portions of its surface are directly exposed... I'm not surprised that iPhones fail less. People take far better care of them.
Twice as reliable is pretty cool but did the study measure form factor or anything like that? I want to know how many times cuter the iPhone is than the blackberry.
Most iPhone users are not using the iPhone for work. I've heard the IT people at my work complain about the number of Blackberry phones that get replaced because employees forget them somewhere or damage them. My company has a lot of field reps and they are the worst of the offenders. iPhone owners, most of whom actually own the phone, are going to take better care of them.
As anyone knows if it is a company asset the user will not take as much care of it as they would something they had to pay for. Also coming from the communications industry I know that keys in general get jammed or clogged with all types of gunk and the iPhone doesn't have a keyboard. I often see Blackberries in use and I have to admit they never seem to have protective covers unlike the iPhones I see.
Please, read the report... the real deal is that this is a case of bad "reporting" by bloggers looking for hits. Read below for some relevant points.
Amazing how people can be fooled by a few pretty graphs... read the report.
On the first page:
"The iPhone is prone to failure due to accidental damage, with 33% more failures reported
in the first year. Nearly one quarter of iPhone handsets are projected to fail due to an
accident in the first two years of ownership."
Next (p6):
"We divided reported malfunctions into the following problem categories...."
software, battery problems, bluetooth camera, antenna, hardware, case, screen keypad, touchpad, call issues, power issues, other
"we look at the frequency of malfunctions reported within the first year of ownership. Adding up the individual failure probabilities gives us the aggregate rates given in Figure 1, so itâ(TM)s no surprise that the iPhone shows the least failures of any individual type.".
Finally (p10)
"We did not take into consideration purchase location, network purchased for, or if the
phone was unlocked at the time of purchase. Other reports have shown that these factors can contribute substantially to the incidence of problems, especially with Call Quality issues."
I'm not surprised at all to see the Treo come in behind the BlackBerry and iPhone. As dearly as I loved my Treos, I went through four of them in a two year span. First was a dead screen, second was a defective screen, next one was dropped in a bucket of water (can't blame that one on the manufacturer), and the last one had a fatal battery/power problem. Even so, I'd prefer any treo from the 600 up over any BlackBerry on the market, but the iPhone gives it serious competition except for openness and wide availability of free/open applications available for the palm platform. I'll seriously consider Android based phones on that basis alone. I expect to see a metric crapton of apps show up for Android in a year or so, without having to worry about Apple deciding I shouldn't have certain apps. Stupid Palm could have so owned this market if they had bothered to develop their OS to keep up with current technology. I'll just keep using my obsolete Palms until they, too, die, but I'm not looking at anything new from the company. Looks like Android and iPhone are my upgrade options when the time comes for me to choose a new smartphone.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
The study must've been done under the reality distortion field.
I mean, how many people that buy iPhones will keep them past the end of the contract anyways? For that matter, how many people that have cellular devices of any kind keep them until they wear out? No, we just throw them away and upgrade, even if they're still working perfectly.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
on the blackberry that make it more prone to 'breaking'. I know on many of my gadgets, sometimes it's the mechanical things that are the first to go.
Although, I was going to suggest the iPhone gets better taken care of - perhaps not. It's just a $199 device to many people, that if they break it, just have to shell out that money and extend their contract with AT&T for a new one most likely.
I'm still wondering how they afford it. Was considering between a truly unlocked iPhone from Hong Kong or an iPod Touch for half the price. It's scary either way, and yet still cheaper than the ATT contract.
Combining this with apple's experience in electronics and software and I'm not surprised that the iPhone is failing less than a company who only have experience in producing one kind of product for a significantly shorter amount of time with a much smaller research & development budget.
The company's userbase isn't geared towards companies but towards individuals. Your off-the-cuff analysis doesn't apply to this study.
The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the BlackBerry
To me that suggests the iphone is 94.4% reliable and the blackberry is 88.8% reliable. That's just me, though.
I record my sleeptalking
If you stop and think about it, it makes a lot of sense that the blackberries /fail/ much more than iPhones.
The reason is because the blackberry is treated as a tool, more likely to be thrown around, and while it can probably handle being thrown around much better than an iPhone, but it'll break eventually. People who get an iPhone will carry it around in their little plastic cases, polishing it with a cloth after every conversation, and protect it with their life.
Also, the lack of mechanical parts (ie buttons) will make it fail slightly less...
01110000 01010111 01101110 00110011 01100100
Personally, I love the features the Curve 8330 has to offer. But I've had my phone spontaneously reboot once since I got it 20 some days ago. My co-worker also got got an 8330 about 30 days ago. Starting last week, his phone started rebooting spontaneously at least five times already before he got it replaced. Keep in mind that mine was from Verizon and he got his through Sprint. Both our phones are running OS v4.3.
I'm not sure if this is a software or hardware issue, but OS v4.5 has been released. Perhaps this will resolve the problem. I only wish BlackBerry would release software updates as frequently as Apple.
Life is not for the lazy.
Most of the iphone owners I know have had the phone replaced by our local apple store at least once. One person at least 3 times. If this "study" isn't including those numbers, that would explain at least part of the bias.
sobbing and pointing in my direction...
The problem is that you didn't invite her to finish you off.
Women are very sensitive to being sexually unfulfilling and they tend to pount and bitch whenever they catch a man masturbating.
Ladies, don't take it personally: we DO enjoy your sexual company, but until you can suck us off 3 times in a row before sex, burn through 3 condoms, then afterward give us residual suckings every half-hour until we fall asleep, men will fall back on their faithful standby Rosie Palms. We may not have 9-inch dicks but that dosen't mean we're going to sulk and bitch all damn night. Sheesh.
If you don't have an AT&T contract, you cannot get your iphone serviced. With that in mind, I'm sure many minor issues aren't sent in for repair and people simply learn to live with them.
For instance, my iPhone has, ever since I got it, had one dead speaker (the left one). But because I've been using prepaid sim card (AT&T) and I used a jail breaking program to activate my phone, Apple won't do anything for me about it. So, as far as they are concerned, my phone is working great. It's not a huge deal so I don't worry about it.
They don't specifically say you must have an AT&T contract to get warranty service, but it's more or less required via the other terms. They wont' service your phone unless its activated ("How can we see if it's working or not?). They won't service phones that aren't activated legitimately (at least not if they know about it). You MUST sign up for a contract to activate your phone (not actually true with the 3g, it'll apparently activate on a prepaid sim).
What is considered a malfunction? And perhaps having the latest and greatest object of the year inspires people to treat the phone with a little more care
What's different between the two phones? Does the lack of a keyboard make the hardware simple enough to have a higher success rate? Does that make it more difficult for people to break?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So if the Iphone had 100% reliability, then the Blackberry would have a 50% reliabilty. I don't think anyone would accept that kind of failure rate...
And in other news, Steve Jobs has announced that Apple is funding new studies in the reliability of the iPhone.
And you could still use it :)
Really, why on-earth they compare a business device to iPhone. Didn't we have a recent study that iPhone owner are mostly people who made lesser than 50k (no offense to anyone). I'm a consultant. yes there are consultants who use iPhone but when you get on the shuttle bis to the airport or even on the airplane, how many people carry BB vs iPhone?
My nephew was trying to show the picture of his ride and accidently dropped it to the concrete and now the device is an iPod (can't make call). With my last job, I dropped the BB (the brown color model) 3-4 times and it still worked.
BB also has its issue. Voice quality is the worst if you drive and talk (not sure how the recent models have improved, if any). Other than that, it still is the best e-mail device until the Nokia E71 arrives. You get the best of both world: full keyboard for e-mail and amazing voice quality from the world leading cell phone technology.
Sure maybe the hardware is more reliable, but the software is terrible. I'd love to have my old blackberry back. Seriously that was the most stable thing I've ever owned. Email always worked, browser while not as good, never crashed on me, never had an issue with reception, and never had an issue with dropped calls.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
"As anyone knows if it is a company asset the user will not take as much care of it as they would something they had to pay for. "
Kind of hard to let roll-over damage get by though. :)
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I'm not going to make an anti-apple comment, I'm not going to make an anti-apple comment...need good karma...must resist urge to ...STEVE JOBBS IS THE DEVIL!!!!!!!
Blackberries are usually bought by companies.
iPhones are usually bought by individuals.
People treat things they own better than things they don't own. Especially an entertainment device when compared to a never ending problem providing device (via emails) like a blackberry. Form factor is also an issue. The blue and blackberries that I've had just had a way of slipping out of my hands when typing. The RIM950, an older version, never slipped/jumped out of my hands.
Bias in the sample? I think the answer is simple - YES.
And say that the reason blackberry's have such a higher failure rate, is due to the business aspect. How many iPhones are actually being used as enterprise devices as opposed to iPhones? The iPhone is hardly a real enterprise device, no matter how hard apple is trying to push it. It lacks true Word processing support, hell even copy and paste is missing. If I had a job that required me to have a reliable phone that fit the needs of my job in the field, I'd trade in my iPhone in for a blackberry or any other smart device. Consumers are far less to get a phone replaced then a business user. I know people who have iPhones that I would barely describe as usable, but haven't gotten them repaired. Why? Because it's not a necessity to something like their job. Does anyone know what the actual iPhone vs Blackberry/Other Smartphone share is in actual enterprises?
-Limb
Really, why on-earth they compare a business device to iPhone.
Because a lot of geeks are considering both and would like information to help their decision making.
Didn't we have a recent study that iPhone owner are mostly people who made lesser than 50k (no offense to anyone).
Nope. People with incomes under $50k was the largest growing segment of purchasers, but still make up a minority of users. The same is true for the Blackberry, by the way.
I'm a consultant. yes there are consultants who use iPhone but when you get on the shuttle bis[sic] to the airport or even on the airplane, how many people carry BB vs iPhone?
That depends upon where you are, but the BB has been on the market a lot longer and has only just now been passed by the iPhone in sales. I don't see how that is relevant to which is more reliable though.
My nephew was trying to show the picture of his ride and accidently dropped it to the concrete and now the device is an iPod (can't make call). With my last job, I dropped the BB (the brown color model) 3-4 times and it still worked.
Yup. The report said iPhones break due to accidents significantly more that Blackberries... but not nearly enough to make up for the overall higher failure rate of Blackberries. Good numbers to pay attention to if you're looking to buy one and you're accident prone or really careful with your electronics.
Other than that, it still is the best e-mail device...
Yeah, could be. I don't have either one and am not biased (don't care). It just seems there are a lot of BB fans here more interested in talking up their favorite toy rather than looking at the numbers and discussing their relevance.
I'm so completely used to random crashes to the main screen, random complete lockdowns, random freezes, dropped calls, you name it... that it'd have to take something pretty remarkable before I even realized it was a fault I could make a warranty claim over as opposed to just "buggy as usual" functioning.
Looking at the typical blackberry users who regard it as a critical piece of their god given right and duty to answer emails even when on the can... I'd imagine they're vastly less tolerant than iPhone users.
Most iPhone users I know, who haven't previously used Blackberries, are pretty happy with their iPhones. Just about every former Blackberry user I know who converted to an iPhone hates the thing's unreliability and wants to go back.
In short: Relying on reported failures doesn't always tell you which device is more reliable. It can just be an indicator of which user group is more tolerant.
Having said that, I now carry a personal BlackBerry phone. It hasn't failed yet but it's not exactly bug free. If you think Microsoft products are poor quality, you should experience what RIM calls "release" software. Nothing that pulling the battery and waiting a few minutes for the thing to reinitialize won't fix, though.
If it didn't do email so well, I'd change it out in a heartbeat. If some other vendor would just get a clue and turn out a multi-function phone that actually does those functions well and stably they'd take over the market. I didn't get an IPhone because the service costs too damned much. I get BlackBerry service for about half what ATT / Apple charge for the Jesus phone.
If Apple would include UMA on the IPhone and break their tie to AT&T then I'd be interested. That's not likely to happen, though. What is likely to happen is another round of poorly implemented phones from the usual suspects.
I'm thinking of a previous Motorola phone that had voice activated functions - or so they thought. I could hit the side button and say "camera" and it'd activate the built in camera. There was no voice command to take a picture or exit the camera, though. Completely useless, but it did allow some corporate fool to mark a checkbox on the feature list.
There's still a long way to go on this stuff - the IPhone is arguably the best implementation available right now but it's got warts aplenty. If someone else would do better then they'd have a winner. Will this happen? I doubt it...
"It just seems there are a lot of BB fans here more interested in talking up their favorite toy rather than looking at the numbers and discussing their relevance."
There's not a lot here that's relevant. BBs have a full qwerty keyboard full of moving parts, and a trackball that can get gummed up. iPhone has 4 buttons. Less moving parts = less points of failure. It's one of the iPhone's advantages. The BlackBerry has its advantages too (far superior email support, significantly less expensive data plans due to compression, can make 3G calls without dropping them every 2 minutes (I have friends who have iPhones, and yes this is actually the average amount of time they can hold a call)).
I notice you got modded flamebait for speaking out against crackberries.
I have never understood the fascination with blackberries. They do email, well so do a ton of other mobile devices.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
My employer got me a Blackberry about 6 months ago and it is the biggest POS phone I have ever used. I do stock trading and thought to myself I should short the hell out of RIMM, but I didn't act on that, boy am I kicking myself now.
Im sure someone else has rightly ranted about this. TFA is quite good, even if the title is misleading newspeak... it is neither accurate to conclude nor precise to state that TFA reports the iPhone as twice as reliable; merely half as likely to fail.
Going from 88ish% reliability to 94ish% reliability is not a DOUBLING. Even if the failure rate has been halved, it does not follow that the reliability has been doubled... I really wish more people payed attention to primary school mathematics, percentages are easy to use and understand; why do people so often get them wrong.
Just my $0.02
jak!
Did they consider usage of the phone in this study? By usage, I mean frequency and what different functions the two phones perform for their owners. They may not have had that info available to them. The iPhone, for instance, may be used more frequently for casual affairs than a Blackberry, which will often make business trips with the user. I don't own an iPhone or a Blackberry, so I really wouldn't know. I read the article but not the full study within the article, and I didn't see usage as one of their factors.
It may be a moot point, however, as I have many coworkers that use an iPhone as their business phone, and they are constantly fiddling with it. But that's just my place of employment. If an iPhone is more casual and a Blackberry is used heavily in the workplace, then I would make a guess that there is a higher chance of something going wrong with the Blackberry.
Anyone else see the iPhone used by a majority in their work place as their business phone?
Best "String" Ever!
I just dropped my BB 8707g from shoulder height (I'm 175 cm tall) onto a marble tile floor and it still works fine. Why would I do something retarded like that? Because I knew it wouldn't break.
This would be modded flamebait if the headline was "Study Finds BlackBerry Twice As Reliable As iPhone"
I'm an iPhone owner, and I've dropped mine on concrete about on 3 different occasions and while it has a few scratches on the back, it still works perfectly fine. I think it all depends on exactly how you hit it. I don't really have any doubt that BBs are a bit tougher, but iPhones aren't that fragile.
Next one: "Study finds Ford cars related in more accidents than Lamborghinis."
OMG so scary.
That's not terribly suprising for two reasons.
1. The devices are all made differently with different points of failure. For instance a Treo has a knob of an antenna or a keyboard that can be damaged.
2. I'm pretty sure that majority of people arn't going to insure their iPhones with a 3rd party provider, since that isn't what AT&T tells them. AT&T will sell them the only official way to service an iPhone, aka Apple Care.
I doubt they have actually owned one then. I have a 3g and it is FAR less reliable than my BB Curve was.
I use a Tilt... So I'm better!
Nokia... who are they?!?! OOOOH... you mean the 800lb gorilla in the room? Don't worry about him... he's waiting to see which of these niche players gets fat enough to eat for tomorrow's breakfast.
this post is a joke, right? there's been plenty of reviews of the iphone (new and old) that show it's one of the most unreliable phones out there.
between at&t not having proper bandwidth support and constant freeze-ups, i'm never buying an iphone. i know several people who have had to return theirs because they just didn't work, despite how much they loved apple products, the iphone they had was simply not working.
maybe people are okay with some broken features just because it's apple, and they don't have the money to fix it, and that's why this report finds them reliable when they certainly aren't.
The Blackberries are being broken by workaholic users who use their devices too much.
The iPhones aren't being broken because the owners are too busy marveling over it and showing it off.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
I do not have a lot of experience with the Black Berry but I can say with confidence that stability-wise, smartphone operating systems should be ordered thusly:
Windows Mobile > iPhone > Anything else > Palm
Windows isn't good at a lot of things, but one thing you can say about Windows Mobile is that it is stable.
or else!
shouldn't that be
"6% more reliable over the course of a year?"
what with 94.4%/88.8% = 1.06
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
Imagine if anything other than a cell phone had that kind of error rate (which was not defined, btw)..
You know... instead of actually using 2 years of iPhone data, 2 years of Blackberry data and 2 years of Treo data - you imaginate half of iPhone data.
And here comes the best part...
You see... as it is we were only guessing how much iPhone will break down it may not really be important to point out that by our findings iPHONES BREAK MORE THAN BLACKBERRY DURING THE SECOND YEAR.
You know... "after the manufacturer's warranty has elapsed".
But all in all, according to our educated-seeming guesses (look at all those beautiful graphs) - it breaks less than other two.
We guess...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Blackberrys get used non-stop. iPhones are just toys for 'loling'.
Where in the contract did it say "available 24/7"? So redundancy pay here we come.
And if you're in the US, a quick lawsuit for wrongful dismissal and breach of contract.
Meanwhile, the Boss doesn't have ANYONE to contact.
Your teachers never explained the difference between "total number of failures" and "failure rate".
My wife purchased a 3G iPhone for personal use back when it first came out. She loves it to death and, for that reason, puts up with an astonishing number of annoyances. The worst thing for me is the lack of quality on the network and the dropped calls. She's always trying to call me with that thing and I can't stand it because I have to strain just to have a conversation.
Now I have a BlackBerry for my job. It does what I need it to and I'm not aware of any malfunctions. If it did have a problem, I'd be very likely to remedy it because my employer would handle all of the repairs/costs and I'd simply have to notify them of the problem.
I'm no iPhone hater - it's a lovely device. A comparison between iPhone and BlackBerry is like a comparison between an Acura and a Honda. Mine's a workhorse. Her's is prettier, faster, and does more (since it's not locked down like mine). But I'm not sold on iPhone reliability (yes - it could be AT&T/3G - but I've heard other 3G devices perform well in my area).
One problem with this, is the number of models available with Blackberries. Are failures the same across all models, or only the cheaper ones? A better comparison, would have been the top model of each.
I work for Rogers in Canada on the tech support line, we have to replace A LOT more Iphones then blackberries. People are just rougher of the blackberry, I would say that customer induced damage on the blackberry is higher, but as for catastrofic failure the iphone takes the cake. I've worked on every smart phone rogers has produced and trust me, the Iphone queue is the longest.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Iphone: 94% not broken in a year.
Blackberry: 88% not broken in a year.
And we all know that 88 x 2 = 94.
Pedantically objecting to a broken slashdot headline?
I must be new here.
I'd argue that you're absolutely wrong. Paying someone a salary, vs. an hourly wage means there's an understanding that neither party thinks it necessary to track every minute that you're working. The employer benefits because he/she gains flexibility. (EG. You might be asked to stay late when a new piece of software is rolled out, and part of the setup can't even be done while the 9-5 employees are around and using the app.) The employee benefits because he/she is freed from a degree of micro-management. (EG. No more getting "write ups" and "warnings" just because a traffic accident or snowstorm caused you to get in 3 minutes late. No big problems if you wind up taking an extra long lunch break when you meet up with some friends you rarely see.)
It's sort of a "gentleman's agreement", not written anyplace, but understood. If either employer or employee abuses it too much, then it creates problems, and the other party is going to consider terminating the employment contract.
Salary was never a written agreement to become a corporate servant.
How is that any different than me saying 'you are paid to do a given job description'? Unless your job description is 'corporate servant' I fail to see how you could come to that conclusion. Obviously if your employer expects more of you than what you feel is worth your salary you can ask for a raise or quit.
Although if your job description is 'software developer' and a customer in Europe finds a show stopping bug at some inconvenient hour, it is perfectly reasonable for your employer to try to contact you at an inconvenient hour. You are paid to deliver a product - not just to be in the office from 9-5 - and the fact is the world doesn't stop at 5PM EST. This is the point I was replying to.
Contractors/hourly employees on the other hand, are paid to be in the office from 9-5.
And the last time I had to worry about 'write ups' or 'warnings' for being late or constraining my lunch time was when I flipped hamburgers at Wendys. None of my corporate jobs - salaried or contracted - have ever given two shits. If that is supposed to be a benefit of a salaried job then I'm either lucky or you've had douche bag employers.
You shouldn't get fired for not having your BlackBerry on at all times, because you should negotiate those expectations when you get the job.
You should agree to one of two things:
Personally, I'd strongly prefer the former. You can always work more to make more money, but when do you get to enjoy it? There is more to life than work, and your boss does not own you.
The world may not stop at 5PM EST, but it's also realistic for companies to grasp the idea that doing sales/support on a global scale requires hiring shifts of people to cover the additional hours.
I'm not saying it's ALWAYS unreasonable to call you at an inconvenient hour, if a huge problem really was caused by your coding mistake and you're their best hope of a rapid fix. But employers regularly demanding a 60 or 80 hour work week from people, under the belief that it's "ok, because I pay them salary"? That's corporate slavery, really. Sure, some people will attempt to do what's demanded of them. Maybe they're a "workaholic" anyway, or they mistakenly believe they're "better" than other people because they do it, or maybe it's a huge hardship on them that they endure because they really need the paycheck? It doesn't make it "ok".
My point is, an employee a company expects to be happy and productive needs to be given a good bit of time outside the office to have a social life, etc. We're all humans, not robots - and this is a basic requirement of getting maximum productivity from us.
BBs have a full qwerty keyboard full of moving parts, and a trackball that can get gummed up. iPhone has 4 buttons. Less moving parts = less points of failure.
Was I the only one that RTFA? The whole study is 10 pages and half of it is graphics. The failures you describe account for one of the 8 categories where the BB lost.
The BlackBerry has its advantages too
Sure it does, but reliability does not seem to be one of them, based on the presented data.
...can make 3G calls without dropping them every 2 minutes (I have friends who have iPhones, and yes this is actually the average amount of time they can hold a call)
Call Quality was one of the categories and it racks up a point every time a user had a dropped call. The BB lost in that category as well.
Reading the comments here has been depressing. No one seems to have read the study, but everyone wants to interject an anecdote about reliability they think helps justify their purchasing decision and, thus, defends their ego. I expected at least one person to say they were surprised by the study, accept the conclusions, and then tell us why that would or would not influence their future purchases.
But can you replace your own iPhone battery (without invalidating the warranty)? Or is it still soldered to the board?
sic
What was the distribution of brands within the 15,000? And furthermore, lets have a look at the stats for AFTER the first year!
Well lets see here, there are two entirely different groups of people that use each phone I think. The iPhone is a teen/early twenties phone, most of it's days are spent in a dorm room or sitting in a locker somewhere. Whereas the blackberry is used by business people or technicians (me) and often doesn't sit in the office or in a book bag. It sits on your belt clip and I think that's the real culprit those effing belt clips... bastards.
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.
People stare at their iPhones.
Or at least use them at their desk since it's only useful with a WiFi connection.
Not in my experience. Two or three reboots per week until I got rid of it. They might as well call it "Pocket Vista".
I guess that settles it, of the two fruits the corporate one goes rotten first...
That works so long as it's give and take...
But many companies want you to be in the office 9-5 *AND* available at arbitrary hours.
I have no issue being available for the occasional out of hours task, so long as i get some flexibility in return.
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