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iPhones and iPads Fail More Often Than Android Smartphones (softpedia.com)
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.
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.
#DeleteChrome
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%?
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?
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.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Let's not forget Apple iPhones are all $500+ while an Android phone can be bought for $100. Apple really doesn't have any excuses for falling behind, not at those prices...
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I'm going to sue you for sexual harassment!!!
I try my best not to bias my opinion against Apple - mainly because I'm forced to work with them - but I have to say this just confirms my own numbers.
I work in schools so I deal with all kinds of devices from servers and PCs down to smartwatches and phones. As "IT" I also get lots of people use me as their personal technical support (my employer doesn't mind, and even encourages it as a value-add for other staff, so long as it doesn't interfere with real work).
Pretty much across the board, people with iPads, iPhones and Macs experience many more failures per device than the rest. I don't even SEE Android users after setting up the email on their phones (something we have to do for them, by policy, so we know they aren't just buying new phones and setting them up themselves). iPhone people also seem to break their screens SO OFTEN that it's just laughable.
I have precisely one dead Samsung tablet "on the pile", and no end of iPods, iPads, iPhones and other gadgets.
The Mac Minis, especially those sold as "servers"? Laughable.
The Mac desktops? Laughable.
And then when you do this not just on a "per-device" basis, but on "per-value" basis, it gets even sillier as you can buy 2-3 or more of the competition for the price of one Apple. You don't get any more work done for that price either, and certainly don't get less failures.
A member of staff brought in some things from clearing out their mother's house after she died. One was a BBC Micro, complete and working. We snapped that up. Then they said "Oh, and I have a Mac at home that just stopped working, it's only a year or two old, I suppose you want that?"
She was quite surprised by our answer. Needless to say, we spent the afternoon with "BOOP-BEEP" startup sounds as we played about with the BBC, but nobody wanted the Mac. Nobody even asked the spec. Literally nobody in the IT office cared about it.
But I have no doubt she ran out and just bought another Mac. Like the person who had a MacBook Pro that nearly exploded because the battery bulged like fuck in it and we refused to touch it and told them to get it off-site (we're a school, so there are kids and I do NOT want some personal device brought on site, exploding, and hurting someone - I am NOT going to do the paperwork and deal with the stupendous health-and-safety aftermath of something like that) and dispose of it elsewhere as soon as they could.
I'm forced to support Apple, against my wishes, and I try really hard to spin positives from what they offer. But I literally can't find enough to justify. It's basically popular "because it's popular", like designer trainers or something. In terms of actual figures on almost any aspect, Apple devices are atrocious.
"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.
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.
Don't step on the baby.
Mod this up.
By the apparent criteria of this "study", all devices fail 100% of the time because, at some point, one of its many capabilities will fail to work when someone tries to use it.