A smartphone, whether running on iOS or Android, does sometimes irritate you with hardware problems, app failures or other type of malfunctions. When it comes to which of them is better, iOS is generally believed to be superior. However, according to a recent report, smartphones and tablets running on Android are apparently significantly more reliable and have lower failure rates than devices running on iOS.
Android has lower failure rates than iOS
In their “Q1 2017 State of Mobile Device Performance and Health” report, Blancco Technology Group claimed that Android-based smartphones or tablets are performing better than iOS devices when it comes to trouble-free operation. Over 2 billion monthly active devices, tablets and smartphones are running on Android, making it the most popular mobile operating system in the world.
The report found that the overall failure rate for iOS devices stood at 68% during the first quarter of this year, compared to 50% for Android-based devices. However, the overall failure rate has increased from the fourth quarter of 2016, when it was 47% for Google’s OS and 62% for Apple’s OS.
According to the report, the “failure rate” means devices with several performance issues that could not be resolved. The data is relevant, claims Blancco, as it is collected from millions of Android and iOS devices that came back to smartphone makers and mobile carriers for diagnostics testing in Asia, Europe and North America during the first quarter of 2017.
Apart from the failure rate, Google’s OS is better than Apple’s OS in several other areas as well. Applications crash less often on Android than on iOS. According to the report, apps crashed nearly three times more on iPhones than they did on Android-based devices. In addition, Apple devices had more GPS connectivity and overheating issues than devices based on Google’s OS.
However, common issues experienced by Android users were camera malfunctions and weak carrier signals. Though only 3% of Android users reported malfunctioning cameras, cellular connectivity issues troubled up to 6% of the users in the first quarter.
Expensive smartphones are not trouble-free
The study found that Apple’s two most recently released smartphones, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, were the biggest offenders when it comes to reliability. During the fourth quarter, only 3% of the iPhone 7 units were reported to have malfunctioned, but that number increased to 10% during the first quarter. The number of failing iPhone 7 Plus devices rose from 3% to 11% during the same period.
Motorola, Samsung and LG performed the worst among Android manufacturers. The Samsung Galaxy S7 was ranked as the worst-performing Android-based phone in the first quarter with a failure rate of 9%, and the Galaxy S7 Edge was at second with 8%, while the Galaxy S5 was third with 5%.
The failure rates for these smartphones do not come as a surprise, as they are the top sellers in the market. After all, the more handsets involved in the test, the greater the probability of their being a malfunction with that model.
