Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
Exactly. This study's findings are applicable only to people who have SquareTrade warranties--but I'm sure diehard Apple fans will point to this study as more proof that the iPhone is the best thing since sliced shit.
(Disclaimer: I own a MacBook.)
Keep your eyes to the sky.
I'm willing to make that measurement for you in a highly standardized way, but I'm not sure what the SI units for "cuteness" are. Could you enlighten me on this?
Puppies
Can't speak of iPhone - I can only say to BlackBerry.
In my company we have so called "standby support," when people are getting a BlackBerry from company and have to respond to customer calls.
The amount of abuse BlackBerry can survive is really impressive. Generally, BlackBerrys assigned to standby support pool last for 8-14 months. But the phones rarely have a quiet hour in their lives.
So my biased theory would be that BlackBerry and Treo are failing more because they are used in business more and thus are open to more abuse.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I actually think a major factor would be fewer points of failure. You have 3 buttons, one switch, the screen, the case, the chip and the battery. I would imagine the failure rate of highly used keyboard buttons on the blackberry would be much higher than the touchscreen.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
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
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).
That's the imperial measurement, the SI one is juvenile dog
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.
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.
Ummm, when you're a salaried employee, you are effectively owned by the company 24/7. You are paid to do a given job description, regardless of what hours you need to do them. If you don't like it, you can spend your life as a contractor and get paid by the hour - you'll make more, but you can be fired at a moments notice with no recourse. It's all a matter of what's more important to you - job security or not being owned by 'the man'?
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.