# Do iOS Apps Crash More Than Android Apps? - study



## editor (Feb 7, 2012)

It seems they certainly did for the purposes of this study, despite all the supposed 'fragmentation' issues on Android.







> Crittercism analyzed a total of more than 214 million app launches from November and December 2011 from apps that use its service (see graph at top of this article). There were about 3 times more app launches for iOS that Crittercism analyzed, about 162 million to 52 million. But the analysis examined app crashes as a percentage of each app launch, so this data takes out the issue of there being more iOS than Android apps. In other words for each iOS app and each Android app how often percentage-wise do they crash?​​In the top quartile of apps, Android apps crashed 0.15% of the time they launched, while top quartile iOS apps crashed 0.51% of the time. In the second quartile of apps, Android apps crashed 0.73% of the time and iOS apps crashed 1.47% of their launches. In the third quartile of apps, Android apps crashed 2.97% of the time, while iOS apps crashed 3.66% of the time.​
> Still, the data shows that apps on iOS did crash substantially more than Android apps.​


http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/02/02/does-ios-crash-more-than-android-a-data-dive/


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## freshnero (Feb 7, 2012)

I never had a crash on my iphone but quite a few on my android  
But given the customization options on android its to be expected 
I can't imagine not being able to change my keyboard/sms/skin

The core idea of android being able to change the phone to your needs 
Apple are going to have to pull off something really special with the new iphone
The market has changed and apple seem to be running out of ideas

The only problem with android is the lower end phones really do a disservice to android


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## joustmaster (Feb 7, 2012)

its more how the crash is dealt with, not a few percent difference in frequency.


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## Crispy (Feb 7, 2012)

freshnero said:


> Apple are going to have to pull off something really special with the new iphone
> The market has changed and apple seem to be running out of ideas


Apple are making 75% of _all_ profit in mobile phones. Their revenue from iphones exceeds all of Microsoft's revenues put together. I don't think they're in any trouble at all.


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## sim667 (Feb 7, 2012)

I've only really had apps crash when my iphones have got a bit older and the apps have got more complex.

My iPhone 4 is starting to have a few crashes now, but tbh any piece of kit that has been on constantly for years at a time is going to start struggling eventually.

My mate was moaning about his galaxy crashing all the time the other night


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## grit (Feb 7, 2012)

Pointless article, without stats relating to the amount of each applications they track.


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## mauvais (Feb 7, 2012)

joustmaster said:


> its more how the crash is dealt with, not a few percent difference in frequency.


Out of curiosity, how do you expect it to be dealt with?


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## Private Storm (Feb 7, 2012)

Surprised at that number having used a variety of flavours of both iOS and Android. Although apps crash on iOS, in my experience, vast majority of times, you can fire them up again and all is ok.


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## twistedAM (Feb 7, 2012)

Private Storm said:


> Although apps crash on iOS, in my experience, vast majority of times, you can fire them up again and all is ok.


 

My 3GS is almost two years old and apps are starting to crash a bit. They always work second time but that's still annoying.


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## editor (Feb 8, 2012)

mauvais said:


> Out of curiosity, how do you expect it to be dealt with?


I expect a personal apology from the app developer, along with a rack of compensatory free buns.


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## joustmaster (Feb 8, 2012)

mauvais said:


> Out of curiosity, how do you expect it to be dealt with?


tidily and cleanly.


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## grit (Feb 8, 2012)

mauvais said:


> Out of curiosity, how do you expect it to be dealt with?


 
I assume he is referring to exceptions being thrown and dealt with in a manner that doesn't require a force close?


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## mauvais (Feb 8, 2012)

grit said:


> I assume he is referring to exceptions being thrown and dealt with in a manner that doesn't require a force close?


Never going to happen. The whole point is that the developer didn't catch the fault and therefore the system has to deal with it, in which case the only thing to do is restart the app or at least the failed component of it - otherwise you are playing a dangerous game of guess-the-patch. This is exactly what Android (and I imagine iOS) does. I only have Android experience, but everything (with the possible exception of the NDK) is quite nicely sandboxed and it is near-impossible for a failed app to take the system down with it.


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## grit (Feb 8, 2012)

mauvais said:


> Never going to happen. The whole point is that the developer didn't catch the fault and therefore the system has to deal with it, in which case the only thing to do is restart the app or at least the failed component of it - otherwise you are playing a dangerous game of guess-the-patch. This is exactly what Android (and I imagine iOS) does. I only have Android experience, but everything (with the possible exception of the NDK) is quite nicely sandboxed and it is near-impossible for a failed app to take the system down with it.


 
Yes, obviously.

I'm saying he expects a broader array of exceptions that are caught.


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## editor (Feb 8, 2012)

I still want the buns.


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## sim667 (Feb 8, 2012)

twistedAM said:


> My 3GS is almost two years old and apps are starting to crash a bit. They always work second time but that's still annoying.


 
Try restarting your phone every couple of days, or bring up the multitask bar and hold one of the icons til they start wiggling, then hit the little red symbols in the corner, it will close the apps, freeing up the memory 

Turning it off and on again is easier though.


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## twistedAM (Feb 8, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Try restarting your phone every couple of days, or bring up the multitask bar and hold one of the icons til they start wiggling, then hit the little red symbols in the corner, it will close the apps, freeing up the memory
> 
> Turning it off and on again is easier though.


 
Cheers. Phone turned off. I never tend to do that (nor with my Macbook) so will try and remember. Thanks for the tip; it's a basic one but those are the ones you tend to forget!!


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## gentlegreen (Feb 8, 2012)

On my cheapie Android phone which I've only had a bit over a month, both Winamp and Tunein streaming audio apps crash a fair bit - to the extent that I took Winamp back off for a bit and try to use Tunein where I can.
I have on one occaision been forced to take the battery out and then put it back in to get the phone started, but I may have allowed it to get too flat ...


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## mrs quoad (Feb 8, 2012)

> So what does all this data mean? On a basic level, you can see that iOS apps crashed more than Android apps during this time period. But Crittercism’s Levy cautions that this doesn’t necessarily mean that overall iOS apps crash more than Android apps. That’s because Apple had recently released a new version iOS 5 in October. Android’s new Ice Cream Sandwich operating system (Android 4.0), meanwhile, had not been widely released on phones yet at the time of this study. “I expect as Ice Cream Sandwich just launched and the new Nexus S phone launched (during the study), we’ll expect the same situation to occur (with Android) as what happened (with iOS),” Levy says.​


​​I'd also love to know if they had any means of comparing the apps that crashed on the various Android / iOS platforms. There're some (almost always newer) apps which I know will crash unless I've restarted my iPod or cleared out any multitasking.​


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## sim667 (Feb 8, 2012)

twistedAM said:


> Cheers. Phone turned off. I never tend to do that (nor with my Macbook) so will try and remember. Thanks for the tip; it's a basic one but those are the ones you tend to forget!!


 
A good way is to make sure processor and memory intensive apps are shut down and not just in the background. Close them through the multitask bar, helps with speed of phone on some occassions and battery life.


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## twistedAM (Feb 8, 2012)

sim667 said:


> A good way is to make sure processor and memory intensive apps are shut down and not just in the background. Close them through the multitask bar, helps with speed of phone on some occassions and battery life.


 
Excuse my extreme thickness here..where is the multitask bar?


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## sim667 (Feb 8, 2012)

got to the home screen and double click the home button


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## gentlegreen (Feb 8, 2012)

sim667 said:


> got to the home screen and double click the home button


Another thing I've learned. 

Android apps seem particularly lax in the shutting down department..


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## twistedAM (Feb 8, 2012)

sim667 said:


> got to the home screen and double click the home button


 
Ah, progress. How do I shut the through the multitask bar? I thought that just was to show what apps you'd used recently.


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## sim667 (Feb 8, 2012)

hold down on one of the icons, they'll start wiggling, then tap the little red symbols in the top left of each icon


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## sim667 (Feb 8, 2012)

gentlegreen said:


> Another thing I've learned.
> 
> Android apps seem particularly lax in the shutting down department..


 
If you swipe across to the left in the multitask bar then it will give you ipod controls without having to go all the way into the music app too.....

There's quite a lot of cool little things hidden in iOS which a lot of people dont find.


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## editor (Feb 8, 2012)

gentlegreen said:


> Android apps seem particularly lax in the shutting down department..


In what sense?


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## twistedAM (Feb 8, 2012)

sim667 said:


> hold down on one of the icons, they'll start wiggling, then tap the little red symbols in the top left of each icon


 
Cheers..cleared about 25 of them!


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## gentlegreen (Feb 8, 2012)

editor said:


> In what sense?


 
I suppose it's because there are only 3 buttons to play with. In Skype, for example, you have to get back to the right screen to get the exit option, plenty of them don't even have that and just go into the background when you think you've exited ..


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## mauvais (Feb 8, 2012)

The Android design guidelines specify that you should not have 'exit' or 'stop' buttons - the concept of 'sign out' blurs that a little. It's the operating system's responsibility to mop up background apps. Whether it does this in the way that any one person deems best is a subjective thing.


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## FridgeMagnet (Feb 8, 2012)

Closing things in the quick launch bar doesn't, in practice, affect performance or memory at all - they aren't running in the background (except in some rare situations and then only for a short time) and any saved state they are holding in memory gets killed if the device runs short.

http://speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios-multitasking.html

What it can do, however, is help you restart an app that is misbehaving due to a bug or network problem or some such.


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## sim667 (Feb 8, 2012)

Well if thats the case when I have navigon in the background it A. wouldn't make the entire phone run slowly, b. Kill my battery in 20 minutes. Same with tvcatchup too.


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