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Ask Slashdot: What Are the Most Stable Smartphones These Days?
janimal writes: The iPhone used to be the smartphone that "just works." Ever since the 4S days, this has been true less and less with each generation. My wife's iPhone 6 needs to be restarted several times per week for things like internet search or making calls to work. An older 5S I'm using also doesn't consistently stream to Apple TV, doesn't display song names correctly on Apple TV and third party peripherals. In short, as features increase, the iPhone's stability is decreasing. In your opinion, which smartphone brand these days is taking up the slack and delivering a fully featured smartphone that "just works"?
Every phone seems to have this same issue, but it is not the phones fault. It's the fault of what the owner installs on it. My wifes galaxy mega was great at first, but now that she has all these stupid games installed it is buggy and needs to be restarted regularly.
No, seriously. Blackberry OS 10.3 is pretty damn solid. I don't have any issues with system stuff crashing on my Q10.
I do have some apps crash, but that's the app developer's problem. Not much the OS vendor can do about that.
I initially got a Blackberry because I wanted a hardware keyboard, and couldn't find an Android with a good one. However, after using the Q10 for a while, I would hate to go back to Android even with a good keyboard - I really, really like the Hub and the way gestures work.
Blackberry's voice assistant isn't as flexible as Google's or Apple's, so that might be an issue for you. It works well within what it's designed to do, though.
Apps can be an issue. Usually for anything I want an app for there's one or two apps, probably paid, versus thirty free ones in the Google Play store. I can access the Amazon Appstore for Android (comes with the OS) and sideload Snap, which lets me use the Google Play store, but the phone lacks some Android services so a good chunk of apps don't work. The Android runtime's pretty solid, so the apps that don't need Play Services work well.
What does "just works" even mean? Do you want it to be able to reliably make phone calls without having to worry about software failing? Get a non-smart phone.
If you want a "reliable" smart phone that doesn't need reset or suffer stupid ass software failures, get one of those $50 Samsung android smart phones. They are pretty reliable because they can't do much to begin with.
If you want a top of the line, super-newest-version, can-serve-as-my-PC smart phone, you are going to have issues, just like every other computer doing complicated tasks does.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Is this a joke? Paid corporate fodder?
You spew some anecdotal crap about iOS becoming less stable over time and then an almost rhetorical question about an alternative "fully featured smartphone that just works". The iPhone and Apple eco-system is the fully featured system that just works. If you're having a bad time now, don't even bother with Android -- just give up and get yourself and your wife some flip phones because the problem is the user not the OS or device.
We're talking about stability here. If I compare the Apple devices I have used (iPhone 3G up to 5s) to the Android devices (various tables, and a Samsung phone we bought to replace my mother-in-law's iPhone 4), Apple still comes out ahead. I've had some hardware issues on the Apple devices, most notably the AntennaGate issue (noticable but hardly a real issue) as well as WiFi dying on an iPhone 4s (pretty uch bricking it, and just after warranty expired, of course). I have had hardware issues on Android stuff as well, mainly home buttons breaking and a battery dying because it got undercharged... the battery was replaced easily enough, but the new battery will break just the same if I leave the tablet off the charger for too long.
Software wise, iPhones have been rock solid for me, a few minor issues asides. I have not had any major issues like I experienced on the Android devices, such as the browser getting hijacked somehow (with only a couple of regular apps installed), and one Samsung phone that at some point will just reboot every few minutes, with the only fix being a factory reset.
Apple stuff still "just works". Unless it does not do out of the box what you want it to do, then chances are that you're stuffed if you picked iOS. iOS is a walled garden, but sitting here in my comfort zone I can't even see the wall, much less feel it or be bothered by it. Never even considered jailbreaking my phone. I don't like Apple or their business practices all that much, and I wish they'd open up their OS a little, but there is no way I'll switch to Android anytime soon after the decidedly poor experiences I have had with Android. But that is just personal, I know plenty of people who switched from Apple to Android and haven't looked back. Some others have returned to Apple. So perhaps it is mostly a matter of taste after all.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Heh. Actually, I hate all smart phones equally. I have absolutely no desire for a digital leash and tracking system. If I'm not home, leave a message. Rather than looking up restaurants on a phone, I decide where I'm going to eat before I leave the house and (shock of shocks!) look up directions on how to get there before I start travelling.
For someone who has no computer at home, I can understand the appeal of combining phone/internet/music player/camera rather than buying separate devices, but if you've already got those devices, there isn't much benefit to a "smart" phone.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Actually, I'm pretty happy with the iPhone6: it just works. I'm on T-mobile, and I doubt I've had to restart it to get it to work more than 3 times since I got it in September 2014. My wife has had the same experience -- she can't recall ever having to restart it to get it to work.
Your wife's iPhone needs to be looked at. Your 5S is streaming even higher res video to another device on a WiFi network (it couldn't be the home network - nah, impossible) yet here you are, putting a trend line on something with two data points. Yeah. That's how it's done.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Windows Phones (at least the Lumias).
Yup. My next phone will be a Windows Phone. I'm so fucking sick of Android.
In other words you don't know what you are talking about with regards to the merits of different smartphone OSs.
at least we can make phone calls on our dumb 'feature' phones while you guys reboot...
my old flip phone goes 7-10 days between charges (and that's a fair amount of use, not just sitting in a purse for a week)... charges from near nothing to full in 15 minutes... 'boots' in under 3 seconds (probably faster if it weren't for the carrier's animation at poweron)... has no ads... is smaller.... is more durable... is immune to 'butt dialing'... has real buttons... costs less.. both hardware and service plan.... doesn't bother me with notifications from a bazillion apps.... doesn't get slower every 3-6 months with every software update (more like.. 'what software updates?')... can't get viruses or trojans....
McDonald's has always been the superior cuisine. Why else do you think it has more global market share than any other restaurant chain?
Yes.. Blaming the user for shitty software...
"Fool me once, shame you on you. Fool me 1,387,406 times, shame on me."
It's not like the fact that nearly all apps are shit is a big secret.
My smartphone fits in my pocket or purse a lot easier than my video camera.
My smartphone has GPS to help me when I get lost walking around downtown. It's hard to get back on track if you've taken a few wrong turns with just a sheet of directions. Ditto with shortcuts when I'm cycling.
You can't call 9-1-1 away from home if you don't have some sort of mobile phone - and obviously most car accidents, as well as a lot of other bad things, happen outside the home.
I can listen to the radio and my own music collection without having to drag around a separate device devoted to that - just headphones.
I don't need a watch with my smartphone. Or a calendar. Or a pen and paper for notes.
When someone sends me a text or an email, there's no "he said - she said" disputes over what was said. Try doing that with your home phone.
I don't have to drag a book along if I think I might have to wait a while somewhere.
When someone absolutely has to get hold of me no matter what, they can. Can't say that with a land line.
Example: A (rather old) neighbor had fallen and broken his hip in a nearby parking lot during a heavy snow storm. He lay there for 2 hours before someone who had decided to take the same shortcut to the store came across him. If he had replaced his land line with a cheaper mobile device, he could have phoned for help immediately. It's just luck that he didn't have to spend the night outside.
There are so many reasons to swap the land line for a smartphone - which explains why 40% of the population has one wireless phone service.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Due to all of the Linux and Mac shills that prowl around Slashdot this isn't going to be a popular answer but it's a factual one.
Windows Phone. Stable and gives better performance than any Android phone with twice the specs.
Microsoft or not, it is the fault of the OS if it wasn't designed to sandbox everything. I have to reboot my Galaxy every few days. I do indeed blame the OS, and no doubt the hardware isn't so robust either.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Fact: Putting the word "fact" before your sentence does not absolve you of the need to back it up with actual evidence.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No - in other words, the man knows how to live life without an electronic nanny in his pocket.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Every phone seems to have this same issue, but it is not the phones fault. It's the fault of what the owner installs on it. My wifes galaxy mega was great at first, but now that she has all these stupid games installed it is buggy and needs to be restarted regularly.
Blaming applications for screwing up the system is not an acceptable answer in my book. The OS should be capable of gracefully withstanding abuse from user land without freaking out. If it can't it deserves to be called out for its failure.
Your last point would be my question to the Original Poster: do you want a stable phone or a phone with lots of features? If you want an incredibly stable phone then it's easy to find and kill all of the bugs. But which is worse having buggy whizbang feature or not having whizbang feature at all? If I had to choose I would pick buggy whizbang feature. Because the only thing worse than doing something poorly is not being able to do it at all.
I worked with a company as an adviser and they refused to add whizbang because they didn't feel they could do it perfectly. Well... the outcome was that people needed whizbang and they picked buggy and slow over not-at-all. And they in my opinion picked correctly. I can tell someone that I can so that but it'll take 2 days and they might pick me. If I tell someone I can't do it at all they'll definitely pick someone else. So even if I'm slow there is still a chance I'll get the job. The end result was the product died because they refused lower their standards and compete.
This is taking place in the smartphone market. You have to have feature parity. The End. Full Stop. If you can't do what someone else is doing customers will jump ship. Android has taken over the market using this strategy and customers are generally pretty happy with the tradeoffs involved.
The phones are stable. It's the junk you put on them that make them unstable.
If an OS lets the apps make it unstable, then the OS (and phone) is bad. A well configured OS shouldn't allow instability caused by apps.
SJW n. One who posts facts.