Study IOS apps crash at a greater rate than android Apps

[thewitt]

Our apps write crash logs and report themselves to us, on all platforms. It's no contest. We see 10x Android crashes over iOS crashes, with many more iOS devices in the field as well

 

[daddyd302]

Who's here crashes alot for me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it'll crash a few minutes later. Some of my game crashed after installing, but now is working fine. The games were NBA Jam, Crash Kart, NOVA 2, Spiderman and ulitmate Mortal Kombat. I'm not sure why they crashed and now they're working fine.

 

[srf4real]

So, you don't have any stats. Crittercism is a start up that develops (and sells) SDK for crash reporting. That's how they got their data. You can buy their solution and see if your own observations were factually correct.

My crash reports go to chronic dev team.

Regardless of random statistics, my Android device totally flipped out on me where an erase and restore was the only solution three times within five months.. (probably due to crap apps)..yet my iOS phone has never forced me to restore in one year. And it's been jailbroken in iOS 4 and 5 yet remains ever constantly reliable.

 

[roxxette]

Ive seen quite a few games on the app store that clearly say in the description to "close" other open apps before launch to prevent crashing and even recommend a reboot after install.

Sometimes i dont understand whats with people and apple ? My first smartphone was a iphone 3g and after that i have upgraded every year but that doesnt stop me from knowing "ios" is not the most advanced os in the market it is actually starting to be (looks also) pretty outdated but like i always say i stick with it cause im allready used to it plus my life gets easy with synch and itunes on my mac ; you rarely see iphone users going to android or win7 phones BUT people looking to make the jump in smartphones are going the android/win7 route and not only because they are cheaper

Ps. Excuse my english

 

[blesio]

Besides, the author is saying about iOS fragmentation where iOS versions are scattered while the Android fragmentation isn't actually about the OS version but the hardware, there's so much different hardware platforms on Android which actually makes programming difficulties for this OS and this is all that can be said fragmentation wise. So it can be easily said that the author is full of bullocks

 

[realitycheck69]

Lol @ the responses in this thread. Facts > Anecdotal information. iOS has stability issues obviously.

 

[marcusj0015]

I'll bet it's a RAM issue causing all those crashes. thats why 99% of my apps crash, iOS sure is a greedy bitch. I get about 75MB free on my iPt4, without any launch daemon tweaks, and that's before a SBSettings Freemem, after freemem it jumps to about 140MB AKA iOS 4.2.1 levels, before creeping back within minutes.

OH, incase anyones wondering, I only get about ~20MB more after Launch Daemons tweaks.

 

[Xgm541]

My friend with his android frequently sees the foreclose button

 

[eawmp1]

The second note that was discussed was the reasoning behind these crash rates, that seem to get higher as you get to a higher OS build. The obvious reaction is to assume that because the majority of people run the newest OS that the rate would have to be higher. This study doesn’t ignore that idea, but they also want to toss out the fact that many of the apps we use on a daily basis are simply not updated to be compatible with new releases. I would tend to agree that that is probably issue #1. How often do you find yourself on your Galaxy Nexus asking, “When is <insert favorite app> going to get Ice Cream Sandwich support?”

Lastly, the overall numbers that were presented are nothing for anyone to be overly concerned about. Sure, we can brag it up for the next few hours to our iOS counterparts about how their apps are less stable, but the truth is that apps on both platforms are crashing at less than a 1% rate. We aren’t talking about apps crashing 10-20% of the time or anything here. Both operating systems are stable, Android just happens to be slightly more stable.

-from the link provided

This is the type of argument one gets from someone with weenis envy.

 

[scaredpoet]

An app can't crash if it won't run at all.

Have they, or will they do a similar study on users thwarted when an app won't run on their device at all, due to the inconsistencies from one device model to the next, and fragmentation of the platform? That's still a significant failure mode, and I'd be willing to bet that a higher percentage of Android users run into that problem more often than iOS users.

But that's a problem that won't show up at all in a "crash" study, when the app won't go on your device to run, let alone crash.

 

[lordofthereef]

I cannot remember an app ever quitting by itself, freezing or malfunctioning in any way.

What do you use? Right now, facebook app is a giant pile of ish (always has been). eBay app just got fixed after 2 months of crashing when deleting messages. PayPal app crashes 1/20 times when trying to log in. Ironically, these apps are all backed by multi-billion dollar companies. The ones made by some guy in his bedroom are often more stable.

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Ive seen quite a few games on the app store that clearly say in the description to "close" other open apps before launch to prevent crashing and even recommend a reboot after install.

This may be true, but that doesn't make it acceptable. A reboot I can see. Needing to kill all of your backgrounded stuff is just silly.

 

[lordofthereef]

An app can't crash if it won't run at all.

Have they, or will they do a similar study on users thwarted when an app won't run on their device at all, due to the inconsistencies from one device model to the next, and fragmentation of the platform? That's still a significant failure mode, and I'd be willing to bet that a higher percentage of Android users run into that problem more often than iOS users.

But that's a problem that won't show up at all in a "crash" study, when the app won't go on your device to run, let alone crash.

I don't know that I would personally consider this a problem. Computers work exactly the same way. Apple has taken the need to know anything about your phone out of the equation. That is great for some people. I wouldn't say the fact that you can't run an resource intensive app on a $5 android phone is a problem.

 

[roxxette]

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[/COLOR]

This may be true, but that doesn't make it acceptable. A reboot I can see. Needing to kill all of your backgrounded stuff is just silly.[/QUOTE]

Thats what im saying , im a big ios user but i dont defend it like its my mother , reboot or not its bs specially the need to close backgrounded wich CLEARLY shows how behind the device spec are

 

[lordofthereef]

Thats what im saying , im a big ios user but i dont defend it like its my mother , reboot or not its bs specially the need to close backgrounded wich CLEARLY shows how behind the device spec are[/QUOTE]

I am almost certain Apple does this, at this point, to keep some sort of congruity and to make people feel like their last iOS device isn't outdated. IMO we clearly should have seen 1GB of RAM in the thing. But then devs start making apps that utilize the extra power... and the older phones get outdated faster. This is why I am so bummed Apple is still selling the 3GS.

 

[scaredpoet]

I wouldn't say the fact that you can't run an resource intensive app on a $5 android phone is a problem.

It is when you can take a 99 cent iPhone 3GS and run an app that will also run on a $599 iPhone 4S.

 

[plinden]

If you'd asked me about my personal experience of crashing apps on my iPhone, I'd have said I rarely, if ever see a crash.

However, you should all take a look at ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/ and count how many crash logs are there. That tells you which apps have crashed and how often.

I have had 587 app crashes (including a number of iOS apps like SpringBoard) since June 27, 2010, when I bought my iPhone 4.

There have been 150 since I updated to iOS 5 on Oct 13th.

So, 437 crashes in 16 months, followed by 150 in 3.5 months, so a higher rate of crashes with iOS 5.

But these crashes don't affect my use of my phone.

 

[lordofthereef]

It is when you can take a 99 cent iPhone 3GS and run an app that will also run on a $599 iPhone 4S.

There are 99 cent Android phones out there too, or those damn close, that would be mid-range or higher. They key is in the specs. Again, Apple has done a fantastic job taking the specs out of the picture. There are people that cannot work with specs, and those tend to hop on the Apple bandwagon (note I am not saying those are the only people... I am actually one of the Apple users that knows exactly what specs of the phone I am getting).

On a side note, IMO Apple has already limited their newer generation phones for the very reason that they want to keep support up for the 3GS and cover more market. JMO, and probably for a different thread.

 

[scaredpoet]

Again, Apple has done a fantastic job taking the specs out of the picture. There are people that cannot work with specs,

The problem here is, you're bringing in the philosophy of openness and specs vs simplicity. We could argue about specs vs simplicity all day.
That's a straw-man, not what their study was about. It was about whether apps crashing - a user experience/frustration issue - is more prevalent on iOS vs Android. I would argue that an app not running at all should count as a similar user experience issue.

 

[lordofthereef]

I would argue that an app not running at all should count as a similar user experience issue.

I understand this argument. My counter is that the app not opening is due to buyer ignorance, assuming the issue is actually hardware limitations. They didn't know what they were getting when they bought the phone. The hardware cannot handle the software. Hands down, iOS is the winner there. You don't have an option to get anything lesser off the shelf. You wlk into any store that sells the iOS platform and you will get a device that runs all current appstore apps, no matter how slowly.

By the way, I made no argument about openness. That is irrelevant to me in this specific case.

 

[Aljamaki]

Having used both my experience is the reverse of these findings.

I was never able to use my EVO as trouble free as my iPhone. I'm definitely not a fanboy but this just doesn't sound right.

This is true, I've had the Original Droid, my wife had the Eris, I got the Thunderbolt for work, and I got RID of the Samsung Droid Charge. The best of them in terms of stability is the Thunderbolt followed by the Original Droid. The Samsung Charge was the WORST of them. All of them crashed apps after owning them as early as a week and as late as three weeks.

I've yet to have my iPhone 4 crash and app and I've had it two months now.

 

[TheSuperSteve]

Well both iOS apps and iOS itself have crashed for me a lot. In fact, iOS itself crashed on me a few hours ago on my iPhone 4S.

I was wifi-syncing some music onto it and I tried to use a speed test app to check my Wifi speed , since its been mysteriously slow lately and then boom. Black screen and white spinny-wheel, and then back to lock screen.


As for apps, while rare, it happens on my iPhone 4S. It happens the most on my iPad 1 and 4th gen iPod touch. Especially when using Flipboard for extended periods.

I just accept it. Its a fact of life that nothing is perfect. I love Apple but I don't drink the Kool-aid. OS X Lion is buggy as hell and iOS 5 isn't perfect either. But they're both better at doing things I care about which is why I use them.

 

[199708]

Im experiencing a high number of crashes in my mail app on my ip4 as of 3 weeks ago. Nothing has changed since i upgraded to 5.0.1 last year and a few apps updates.
Why it has suddenly started to crash while writing emails beats me. very frustrating. using gmail in safari is the only way i can write emails now and icloud doesnt have a web interface that works in safari for me.

 

[archipellago]

iOS apps far more likely to crash than Android

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ios-apps-3x-more-likely-to-crash-than-android-apps/090773


Truth laid bare with facts and figures

 

[mattraehl]

At least link to the original article that has the data and such.

link

Speaking personally, I don't see many app crashes. The only ones that I recall are the Settings app (crashes on ~1/15 launches), Infinity Blade II (has crashed on launch twice), and the Verizon FIOS iPad app - a great app completely marred by its constant crashes.

 

[VulchR]

A couple of points:

1. The data are from Crittercism, which is a company that supplies routines that allow reporting of crashes to developers. Any results from the data they collect could be biased, for we do not know if the iOS or Android apps that use their software are representative of all apps.
2. FWIW I experience an iOS app crash about once a week. M'eh.
3. I don't really care too much if apps occasionally crash provided there is a graceful process of correcting the error that precludes the OS from crashing. I have never had any iPhone freeze from a crash.
4. Even if one were to trust these data, what could be concluded? No very much - any difference could be due to the quality of the developers, the stability of the iOS and hardware platforms, the quality of the availability of programming tools, and even the pressure to get apps out before the competition. Heck, it could be that the Crittercism software is more stable on Android than iOS. Oh, and of course there is sample bias. Take your pick.