When Apple’s new operating system debuted, some were wondering whether they should upgrade to iOS 8 right away or wait a little while to make sure the mobile operating system was stable. Others were confident the upgrade would be flawless. Now, Crittercism, a mobile analytics firm, is showing why some had pause.
When Crittercism analyzed data across iOS users from September 17 to September 22, the firm discovered something rather troubling: app crashes across all devices were at 3.56 percent.
That may not sound like a big deal in the grand scheme of things and indeed it isn’t. But it’s noteworthy when you compare the performance of iOS 8 to iOS 7. The same apps running on the latter version crashed only 2 percent of the time, though the firm admitted that number has climbed slightly from 1.6 percent in March.
What Do the Numbers Mean?
“Older devices are obviously worse offenders than newer ones. As of September 22nd, apps crashed 3.57 percent of the time on the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and iPhone 4s (of note, Crittercism lumped the iPhone 4 into this group in the supplied data even though it doesn’t run iOS 8),” Jeannie Liou, a senior marketing manager at Crittercism, said in a blog post.
“Meanwhile, the company found that as of the same day, iPhone 6 apps crashed 2.63 percent of the time and iPhone 6 Plus apps crashed 2.11 percent of the time. As far as adoption is concerned, we pegged iOS 8 adoption at 20.06 percent as of the 22nd, which is probably a bit low considering Apple confirmed a 46 percent iOS 8 adoption rate as of September 22nd,” according to the blog post.
All this seems like worse news for older iPhone owners than those getting their hands on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. iOS 8 comes pre-installed on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models. If you have an older device, you aren’t obligated to download the update. But you may want to.
Apple is billing iOS 8 as a simpler, faster and more intuitive user experience. The update includes new message and photo features, predictive typing for the QuickType keyboard, and Family Sharing, along with a new Health app and iCloud Drive. The upgrade also offers more than 4,000 APIs that let developers customize the mobile operating system for their apps.
No Problems Here
We caught up with Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, to get his thoughts on the reported issues with iOS 8. He told us he has not experienced any problems with iOS 8.
However, he continued, it’s possible that the mobile operating system could use some additional stability improvements or that some of the flexibility Apple added in for different screen resolutions is impacting existing devices.
“It’s possible. It’s certainly important for Apple to get its apps stability story right because apps are a key part of the ecosystem that people are buying into when they buy Apple devices. Software is software and sometimes additional updates are required,” Greengart said. “I would expect additional software updates before the next big update.”
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