App Crashes: Android vs. iOS, Which Fails More and Why

A report from analytics company Crittercism suggests iOS-based apps are more likely to crash than their Android counterparts.

The question, though, is if these stats truly indicate an issue with Apple's iOS platform or merely routine glitches following a major software (iOS 5) release.

The survey involved a sample analysis of 214 million app launches, during November and December, to evaluate the source of most crashes. The results led to a conclusion that iOS apps crashed nearly thrice as often as Android ones - 162 million to 52 million.

Despite the startling revelations, it should also be noted that Crittercism's analysis occurred after Apple launched an entirely new mobile operating system - the iOS 5 - and before the upgrade - iOS 5.0.1 - was released. The analysis of iOS-based apps and their crashes, between Dec. 1 and Dec. 15 suggests they constitute 32 percent of overall crashes recorded.

"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)," said Crittercism CEO Andrew Levy in an interview with Forbes.

However, a further analysis of the data actually indicates only a marginal gap (between iOS and Android) in the percentage of apps that crashed. The difference, aside from apps running on iOS 5 or iOS 5.0.1, is the fact that some Android apps seem to be better organised in the way they use the operating system, making them relatively less immune to crashes.

A key reason why apps crash could relate to the way the platform is built and updated. It is likely that a newly launched platform - like the iOS 5 - could have uncovered bugs. The same, therefore, could be said about Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. In fact, there were similar concerns over Android 2.3.3 and 2.3.4 (as seen with iOS 5 and iOS 5.0.1).

On a related note, Apple might be on its way with a bug-fix update sometime soon.

Meanwhile, in another interview, Levy spoke on possible reasons for crashes. He suggested errors relating to location/GPS services, data connection, language support, advertising platforms and excessive memory usage could create issues.

Overall, Android's superior app performance could be attributed to its wide open community of developers constantly churning out new bug-fixes and updates. Quite sadly, Apple does not own access to the open source community where new bugs are unearthed and patched up more frequently than an independent company.

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