Study Finds iPhone Twice As Reliable As BlackBerry 301
An anonymous reader writes "As reported at TechCrunch, 'The iPhone is twice as reliable as the BlackBerry after one year of ownership, a new study by SquareTrade finds. SquareTrade, which sells extra warranties for cell phones and other devices, looked at the failure rates of 15,000 phones covered under its plans. The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the BlackBerry and 16.2 percent for the Treo.' The full report (pdf) can be found at the SquareTrade site."
OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that most Blackberry users have devices paid for by their employer. The majority of iPhone users buy their own phones.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Insightful)
My coworkers and I get our Blackberries through the firm, and you'd be surprised how many old-model Blackberries get dropped once the new models become available. "Only the partners have the new ones?" "Yeah. We're relying on attrition to wear down the associates' Blackberries." Next day. "I need a new Blackberry. I dropped mine."
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, I've seen the same thing many times. That was my point. I'd say a sizeable minority of Blackberry 'failures' are people angling to upgrade to the latest greatest model.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I keep hearing about how our auto industry is in the toilet and they need a quarter-trillion dollar loan from the government (us) to keep going and I wonder if there aren't some entrepreneurs out there who could build reasonably priced, well-built cars that were really efficient and looked cool and who could become the next "Big Three". This won't happen, of course, because of the belief that GM, Ford, etc must be helped because they are "too big to let fail".
And by helped you must mean "granted a virtual monopoly on auto production in the US". Or at least a piece thereof.
Whenever I hear that some corporation or bank is "too big to fail" I always think that means they are "too big to exist".
A situation like that is like going to war - by the time you're fighting, you have already failed. Allowing a corporation to get so big means that We The People have FAILED in our jobs as citizens. Myself included.
Our government "of the people" helped the big three automakers destroy the working public transportations which predated our all-auto culture. We are all complicit - we let it happen
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Interesting)
While no denying your comment, I doubt many companies like yours would be using extra warranty services like this. I am sure SquareTrade's statistics only includes those insured by them - most likely individuals and small businesses.
So the abuse by enterprise users likely does not come into these figures.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Funny)
My coworkers and I get our Blackberries through the firm, and you'd be surprised how many old-model Blackberries get dropped once the new models become available. "Only the partners have the new ones?" "Yeah. We're relying on attrition to wear down the associates' Blackberries." Next day. "I need a new Blackberry. I dropped mine."
I had a horrible accident with a Blackberry and a prototype mass driver at the lab. When my supervisor offered to have it repaired I handed him a Dust Buster and pointed to a smudge on the wall.
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I manage the BES at work, and I see something similar where I'm at. Not dropping them, but just claiming that "It doesn't work right. I want a new one.". Generally, this is (I suspect) a user training issue (to put it politely). A higher up claims that something doesn't work on their BlackBerry. They send it over via an assistant, who hasn't used it so can't show me EXACTLY what is wrong with it (naturally the actual user is too busy to spend any time showing us what's wrong themselves - or to even tak
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:4, Interesting)
We had this same problem at the college I work at until the IT department changed up the way we handled this. Now if they "break" a phone we charge the department for phone replacements. You'd be surprised at how few managers of departments are willing to slice $200 off their budget to get a new shiny phone. Or if they do - I don't care, because it doesn't set any of my projects behind any longer.
Also, we initiated a two year rotation on phones - everyone gets a new one (the same model as the deans and executives) every two years. That cut down on the envy-breakage considerably.
Your tax payer dollars hard at work...
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Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Informative)
With 3G Smartphones being so commonplace these days is Blackberry even relevent anymore?
Yes. The Blackberry platform remains the best mobile data system by far. Strong encryption, fully audited, free dev kits, no restrictions on what you do with it, push email, strong control of the devices by central IT policy, and outstanding integration with Exchange, Notes or GroupWise. Even supports PGP or S/MIME email for additional paranoia.
Unlike the iphone or googlephone, no one can remove apps from your blackberry (aside from your IT people).
Now, you might not be interested in all these features, but nothing else comes close.
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It's just I have found Blackberry to be a pain to maintain and just really expensive. Eventually we just went made do with Exchange, for push email in Exchange/Outlook mobile, that can be done (I dont know about Groupwise) and we were already paying for exchange to begin with. We just felt that was good enough so we phased out Blackberry and got everyone O2's, t
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Informative)
Don't get me wrong, I have a Blackberry and I like it; but let's not start giving each other blowjobs just yet:
Can't do VoIP apps - restricted by RIM.
Purchase/licensing and maintenance of a separate Blackberry enterprise server required. Note that iPhone integrates w/Exchange without requiring you to license/maintain this component.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:4, Informative)
iPhone uses SSL for IMAP by default, and I'd be surprised if the Exchange connection isn't encrypted as well. Most Exchange users will use the built-in VPN support to access their Exchange e-mail. That said, you are probably right in that RIM is the only player in the enterprise, but "end-to-end encryption" seems like a bad example.
Why? (Score:2)
I notice you got modded flamebait for speaking out against crackberries.
I have never understood the fascination with blackberries. They do email, well so do a ton of other mobile devices.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention that most Blackberry users have devices paid for by their employer. The majority of iPhone users buy their own phones.
Regardless of who bought it, which would you spend more time protecting? Your personal entertainment device that lets you listen to music etc. or the virtual servant bell which forces you to check your email regularly out of hours and which few people use for personal calls.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of who bought it, which would you spend more time protecting? Your personal entertainment device that lets you listen to music etc. or the virtual servant bell which forces you to check your email regularly out of hours and which few people use for personal calls.
In all fairness, modern BlackBerry handsets do audio and video. Mine even has a 3.5mm headphone jack. Many also come equipped with cameras (although people who need to go places that don't allow cameras can get ones without). It's also good for surfing the Web, and although it comes equipped with a pretty decent mapping application, Google Maps is even better. As for personal calls, well, I really just don't enjoy being on the phone that much. But if I was somewhere away from home and I needed to make a phone call, I imagine pulling my BlackBerry out of my pocket, dialing a number, and holding it to my ear would be the simplest way to do it. Why wouldn't I?
What's more, all modern BlackBerry handsets have an Auto On/Off feature. If you're really so concerned, have it switch itself off at 6pm and come back on in the morning.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's more, all modern BlackBerry handsets have an Auto On/Off feature. If you're really so concerned, have it switch itself off at 6pm and come back on in the morning.
Most people don't have a problem with the device. Even getting into the habbit of manually switching it off wouldn't be too much to ask. What's more difficult is managing your boss' expectation that the thing is on. For that very reason I don't want a Crackberry.
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Informative)
Really?
Boss: Did you get my email?
Me: Not yet, I just got in.
Boss: I sent it at 9pm last night.
Me: Ah, that must be it. I left at 6. So what's up?
Is that so hard? In my experiences, bosses might expect all kinds of things, but rational people generally have a pretty good grip on what is reasonable to expect and what is not -- unless you give them other ideas.
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Think about it - your manager's performance ratings depends usually on yours. If his team is not productive then he is
re: salaried work (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd argue that you're absolutely wrong. Paying someone a salary, vs. an hourly wage means there's an understanding that neither party thinks it necessary to track every minute that you're working. The employer benefits because he/she gains flexibility. (EG. You might be asked to stay late when a new piece of software is rolled out, and part of the setup can't even be done while the 9-5 employees are around and using the app.) The employee benefits because he/she is freed from a degree of micro-manageme
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:5, Funny)
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Not in my case. I've dropped my iPhone 3G several times, including a three-foot fall onto a hard surface--twice. The shiny bezel got a little scratched but the phone works fine.
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I'd be more worried about that glass.....
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What kind of phone call were you waiting on that you couldn't leave the phone in your car? Power tools + boats = phone stays in car, or (dry) sink in the boat.
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Basically, having dealt with SquareTrade (they're actually a pretty decent company, by the way), anything that causes the phone to stop working normally, such as broken screen, broken keyboard, broken battery, broken... well, anything that can't be fixed by the user.
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Just out of curiosity what exactly would you call a user fixable part on a cell phone?
Aside from the few phones that have interchangeable outer covers, I can't think of a single thing. Not like they sell parts at Radio Shack...
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score:4, Informative)
We divided reported malfunctions into the following problem categories:
And, regarding the level of care, and how accident prone iPhones are:
As it turns out, an iPhone user is more than twice as likely to experience an iPhone failure due to accidental damage than through a handset malfunction. An astounding 12% of iPhone owners have reported a failure due to accidental damage at the 1 year mark, and nearly a quarter of all iPhone owners can be expected to have their phone fail from an accident by the end of 2 years. This accident rate is higher than the 9% accident rate reported on all other phones by one-third...
Personally, I see and use the iPhone as an appliance, not as a platform, which is what a real Smartphone is. iPhone is not in the same league, and comparisons of this kind, while informative to some extent fail to provide any significant insights.
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Seriously? iPhone, Windows Mobile, and PalmOS are the only real smartphone platforms. Android may yet prove itself, but Blackberry has the worst development tools and developer community there is. It's big expensive enterprise apps and 1 billion different Solitaire games for $19.99 each.
The iPhone on the other hand, while it has those billions of redundant solitaire games: they're free, and otherwise has an ever improving mixture of enterprise type, reasonably priced, and free apps of all types. Oh, and App
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"an iPhone user is more than twice as likely to experience an iPhone failure due to accidental damage than through a handset malfunction."
Because when you drop the Blackberry your company bought for you, you claim it "just broke". When you drop the iPhone you paid for yourself, you're comfortable admitting that you dropped it.
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Or it might be that people actually carry their iPhones around more places. Which would you take with you when you go out, your work e-mail or your iPod?
Or it could be that iPhones are more fragile, but that hasn't been my experience.
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This is along the lines of my immediate thoughts after reading this article. I own a Blackberry and haven't had a single issue with it.
I won't own an iPhone for reasons I won't detail here, but one of them is price.
I'm less likely to care about a phone that costs me $30 vs my Blackberry that cost me nearly $300
Now, when they detail failure rates, are they referring to actual failures or user ineptitude?
OMGITSAPPLESOPPLARESTUPID!! (Score:2)
What is considered a malfunction? And perhaps having the latest and greatest object of the year inspires people to treat the phone with a little more care
What's different between the two phones? Does the lack of a keyboard make the hardware simple enough to have a higher success rate? Does that make it more difficult for people to break?
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What is considered a malfunction? And perhaps having the latest and greatest object of the year inspires people to treat the phone with a little more care?
I would consider durability a major point of reliability for a phone. Its a device that you carry around with you, it should be able to stand up to being banged around a bit.
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Right. Research suggests that the iPhone are reliable, so their methods must be wrong. Because I know a guy who's iPhone broke, and we all hate Apple anyway, so lets be as dismissive as we can.
It couldn't possibly be because the devices are durable and designed pretty well.
Re: (Score:2)
My phone got a malfunction - it's scratched to shit, is ancient, and has one of my hairs siiting behind the screen*. The weird thing is, it still does the two things I ask of it - make phone calls and keep battery charge (for about a week or so). Until it dies, or something else comes on the market I actually want from a phone, it's perfect. Screw fangled crap, I just want to reliably be able to make calls and have good battery life.
If others want other things from their phones, that is fine. I just wan
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Well speaking as an iPhone user I got to say - BlackBerrys suck.
Speaking as a BlackBerry user, I agree. My reference is a series of Nokias, which the BalckBerrry has taught me to appreciate. The BlackBerry user interface ... well, I love to read documentation, but I hate to have to read it.
bias. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of people who would wait until there was more than one problem with their iPhone before calling it in for repairs. But those with a blackberry might be more quick to respond to problems.
Did the study really only count the number of times someone sent their phone in for repairs, or the actual defects in the hardware?
Re:bias. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bias. (Score:5, Funny)
the case is coming apart - bad glue?
That's not broken. You're one of the lucky ones who got one with a user replaceable battery!
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I have to agree with this totaly[sic].
You have to totally agree with a posting of speculation and conjecture that would be pointless if you bothered to RTFA?
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There are plenty of people who would wait until there was more than one problem with their iPhone before calling it in for repairs.
are you joking? the people who buy apple products are generally complete nuts when it comes to returning stuff. shit, I remember ibooks (or were they macbooks?) being returned because of discolouration where you wrists like. discolouration!
if there's the slightest flaw in an apple product their is almost always an outcry demanding a recall. where are you getting the impression people buying iphones are less fussy than blackberry buyers? because it sure isnt this reality
Re:bias. (Score:5, Informative)
So far even minor issues found in the iphone have been turned into a maelstrom of users, fanboys and haters all cashing in their feedback. There are people actively petitioning the iPhone for the following: Canadian pricing, the autocorrection feature having a disable switch, iphone unlocking/drm, 3rd party application NDAs, iphone in china & other providers, chrome for iphone, mms, 802.1x NACS, etc etc.
The blackberry is not getting anywhere near this much attention, petitions for the blackberry are aimed at the service providers disablement of a particular BB feature.
However all this vocal activity is a good thing for apple, as it gives them ways they can improve their product.
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Not to mention the Blackberry is very likely to be of much older stock. Comparing the faults in a 1 year old device and a 4 year old one would logically turn up more faults in the older model.
excuses (Score:2, Funny)
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I'm having a boring day, but am now looking forward to reading the excuses from the apple haters. bring on the comedy gold!
Go back a little further and you'll find a story about the Google Android platform having an exploit. Not only will you find a boo-boo so dumb that Microsoft would point and laugh, but you'll also find modded up comments claiming that it demonstrates how good the platform is. That topic's far more entertaining than this one.
Can't wait till next year... (Score:2)
Who protects a Blackberry? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I have and carry both a Blackberry for work, and an iPhone because I wanted something that wasn't under the control of IT overlords.
Better luck next time, I guess.
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The figures quoted in the summary don't include failures due to accidents like dropping the phone.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, people generally do take good care of their iPhones. That's why Winnetka residents were outraged when an iPhone was left in a hot car for three hours [theonion.com].
Re:Who protects a Blackberry? (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding. My blackberry gets near constant use all day. In and out of the holster, keyboard pounded on. I've spent 6 straight hours (leashed to a power outlet) doing emergency work over SSH on one. Dropped it repeatedly. Had it on and awake for months of uptime. And you know what? It works just as well as it did the day I got it.
If iPhones have a better fail rate than Blackberries, my guess is because people simply use them less.
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Just out of curiosity, what do you use to do SSH on your Blackberry?
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I'm not surprised that iPhones fail less. People take far better care of them.
The iPhone also has far fewer parts (no KB!) and a restrictive OS that doesn't let you install much. I'm not surprised at a lower defect rate, either.
did the study only measure reliability? (Score:2)
Twice as reliable is pretty cool but did the study measure form factor or anything like that? I want to know how many times cuter the iPhone is than the blackberry.
Re:did the study only measure reliability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:did the study only measure reliability? (Score:4, Funny)
Difference is... (Score:2)
Most iPhone users are not using the iPhone for work. I've heard the IT people at my work complain about the number of Blackberry phones that get replaced because employees forget them somewhere or damage them. My company has a lot of field reps and they are the worst of the offenders. iPhone owners, most of whom actually own the phone, are going to take better care of them.
Company Assets (Score:2)
Company Crashetts. (Score:2)
"As anyone knows if it is a company asset the user will not take as much care of it as they would something they had to pay for. "
Kind of hard to let roll-over damage get by though. :)
Who really cares? (Score:2)
Could it be the physical keyboards (Score:2)
on the blackberry that make it more prone to 'breaking'. I know on many of my gadgets, sometimes it's the mechanical things that are the first to go.
Although, I was going to suggest the iPhone gets better taken care of - perhaps not. It's just a $199 device to many people, that if they break it, just have to shell out that money and extend their contract with AT&T for a new one most likely.
I'm still wondering how they afford it. Was considering between a truly unlocked iPhone from Hong Kong or an iPo
Re: (Score:2)
Could it be the physical keyboards... on the blackberry that make it more prone to 'breaking'.
Yes, but that only accounts for one of the eight categories of failure and the iPhone beat the Blackberry in all of them.
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Based on our internal BlackBerry users mailing list at work, it seems the trackball is usually the first to break. The number of e-mails asking if it's possible to "check e-mail without scrolling {left,right,up,down}" swamps all other topics. The DIY cleaning tips available out there are hit-and-miss. I've been lucky; the two times my 8820 has stopped tracking, the DIY tips worked.
If the iPhone were allowed into our internal network, I would probably migrate over in a heartbeat. However, this is one are
This result isn't surprising. (Score:2)
Combining this with apple's experience in electronics and software and I'm not surprised that the iPhone is failing less than a company who only have experience in producing one kind of product for a significantly shorter amount of time with a much smaller research
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To be fair, RIM released it's first device, the Inter@ctive Pager, in 1995, while the iPod came out in 2001. Unless there are some other devices Apple would have been making before that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter@ctive_Pager [wikipedia.org]
Twice as reliable? (Score:5, Insightful)
The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the BlackBerry
To me that suggests the iphone is 94.4% reliable and the blackberry is 88.8% reliable. That's just me, though.
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The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the BlackBerry
To me that suggests the iphone is 94.4% reliable and the blackberry is 88.8% reliable. That's just me, though.
That makes sense if you're a reseller or insurer, and you're interested in how many iPhones or Blackberrys will be sent back for replacement.
However, the consumer who only owns one such device at a time isn't interested in that probability. He's interested in the probability of this individual unit failing tomorrow. From that point of view, the iPhone is twice as likely to not-fail on any given day -- making it, to him, twice as reliable.
Obvious reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason is because the blackberry is treated as a tool, more likely to be thrown around, and while it can probably handle being thrown around much better than an iPhone, but it'll break eventually. People who get an iPhone will carry it around in their little plastic cases, polishing it with a cloth after every conversation, and protect it with their life.
Also, the lack of mechanical parts (ie buttons) will make it fail slightly less...
Re:Obvious reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
If you stop and think about it, it makes a lot of sense that the blackberries /fail/ much more than iPhones.
The reason is because the blackberry is treated as a tool, more likely to be thrown around...
Unless, of course, you RTFA in which case you see iPhones fail more often due to accidental damage, but still have significantly lower failure rates overall.
Also, the lack of mechanical parts (ie buttons) will make it fail slightly less...
Yup and that probably accounts for that one of the eight categories where the BB lost.
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Not necessarily true (Score:3, Interesting)
If you don't have an AT&T contract, you cannot get your iphone serviced. With that in mind, I'm sure many minor issues aren't sent in for repair and people simply learn to live with them.
For instance, my iPhone has, ever since I got it, had one dead speaker (the left one). But because I've been using prepaid sim card (AT&T) and I used a jail breaking program to activate my phone, Apple won't do anything for me about it. So, as far as they are concerned, my phone is working great. It's not a huge deal so I don't worry about it.
They don't specifically say you must have an AT&T contract to get warranty service, but it's more or less required via the other terms. They wont' service your phone unless its activated ("How can we see if it's working or not?). They won't service phones that aren't activated legitimately (at least not if they know about it). You MUST sign up for a contract to activate your phone (not actually true with the 3g, it'll apparently activate on a prepaid sim).
Re:Not necessarily true (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, good grief; not you, too?
Neither iPhone model has stereo speakers. It's not a dead speaker, it's the fricking MICROPHONE [macrumors.com].
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Actually, since I see from the diagram that the left grille (which you say doesn't work) is the speaker anyway, I wonder if I jumped the gun and rushed to conclusions about what you meant. Do you mean that when you plug headphones in, the left side of your pair of headphones doesn't sound at all? Or do you mean that the only speaker on your iPhone that works is the phone earpiece (so you hear absolutely nothing from the phone itself except for phone conversations without any headphones plugged in...no mus
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No, you were right. Which speaker is left and which is right depends on how you're holding the phone. But thanks for the info, I always assumed the microphone was the slit at the top -- which the diagram says is the "receiver". Though I find that explanation confusing, I'm satisfied that you're correct.
While that's interesting information (and I appreciate it), it doesn't really change my original point that many iPhone owners with minor issues can't really do anything about them so they would be under-r
Twice as reliable? (Score:2)
So if the Iphone had 100% reliability, then the Blackberry would have a 50% reliabilty. I don't think anyone would accept that kind of failure rate...
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Reliable Study (Score:2)
What? (Score:2)
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Sure maybe the hardware is more reliable, but the software is terrible.
Software was one of the categories, with the Blackberry having a 3% failure rate in the first year and the iPhone having a 1%. Unless there was a serious problem with their methodology, it look like their study trounces your anecdote. Not that I care since I can't afford either right now.
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I wonder what they classify as a "Failure" Because there is no way an iPhone is more stable than a Blackberry.
There is a link to the study in the summary. A failure was a call from a user because the OS or an application had locked up or was not working properly.
Speaking as an iPhone user... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so completely used to random crashes to the main screen, random complete lockdowns, random freezes, dropped calls, you name it... that it'd have to take something pretty remarkable before I even realized it was a fault I could make a warranty claim over as opposed to just "buggy as usual" functioning.
Looking at the typical blackberry users who regard it as a critical piece of their god given right and duty to answer emails even when on the can... I'd imagine they're vastly less tolerant than iPhone users.
Most iPhone users I know, who haven't previously used Blackberries, are pretty happy with their iPhones. Just about every former Blackberry user I know who converted to an iPhone hates the thing's unreliability and wants to go back.
In short: Relying on reported failures doesn't always tell you which device is more reliable. It can just be an indicator of which user group is more tolerant.
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Speaking as an iPhone user, WTF are you doing that causes your phone to crash so much? I have some problems with safari, but other than that it works fine.
It checks an imap mailbox with at least a hundred folders, and several hundred messages in the inbox itself at any given time, I use the clock for alarms, cal for future events, sms very lightly, a couple pages of downloaded apps and it just works.
Today was the first day where I've had a real problem, and you better believe I was on the phone with AT
I've got some experience here (Score:2)
Having said that, I now carry a personal BlackBerry phone. It hasn't failed yet but it's not exactly bug free. If you think Microsoft products are poor quality, you should experience what RIM calls "release" software. Nothing that pulling the battery and waiting a few minutes for the thin
half the failure rate not twice as reliable... (Score:2)
Im sure someone else has rightly ranted about this. TFA is quite good, even if the title is misleading newspeak... it is neither accurate to conclude nor precise to state that TFA reports the iPhone as twice as reliable; merely half as likely to fail.
Going from 88ish% reliability to 94ish% reliability is not a DOUBLING. Even if the failure rate has been halved, it does not follow that the reliability has been doubled... I really wish more people payed attention to primary school mathematics, percentages
Usage? (Score:2)
Did they consider usage of the phone in this study? By usage, I mean frequency and what different functions the two phones perform for their owners. They may not have had that info available to them. The iPhone, for instance, may be used more frequently for casual affairs than a Blackberry, which will often make business trips with the user. I don't own an iPhone or a Blackberry, so I really wouldn't know. I read the article but not the full study within the article, and I didn't see usage as one of their f
I call BS on this one (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah, it's a close one, but I'm going to go with the study in TFA.
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Exactly. This study's findings are applicable only to people who have SquareTrade warranties--but I'm sure diehard Apple fans will point to this study as more proof that the iPhone is the best thing since sliced shit.
(Disclaimer: I own a MacBook.)
Re:Or?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't speak of iPhone - I can only say to BlackBerry.
In my company we have so called "standby support," when people are getting a BlackBerry from company and have to respond to customer calls.
The amount of abuse BlackBerry can survive is really impressive. Generally, BlackBerrys assigned to standby support pool last for 8-14 months. But the phones rarely have a quiet hour in their lives.
So my biased theory would be that BlackBerry and Treo are failing more because they are used in business more and thus are open to more abuse.
Re:Or?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You could still drop the BB 3-4 times to concre (Score:2)
Really, why on-earth they compare a business device to iPhone.
Because a lot of geeks are considering both and would like information to help their decision making.
Didn't we have a recent study that iPhone owner are mostly people who made lesser than 50k (no offense to anyone).
Nope. People with incomes under $50k was the largest growing segment of purchasers, but still make up a minority of users. The same is true for the Blackberry, by the way.
I'm a consultant. yes there are consultants who use iPhone but when you get on the shuttle bis[sic] to the airport or even on the airplane, how many people carry BB vs iPhone?
That depends upon where you are, but the BB has been on the market a lot longer and has only just now been passed by the iPhone in sales. I don't see how that is relevant to which is more reliable though.
My nephew was trying to show the picture of his ride and accidently dropped it to the concrete and now the device is an iPod (can't make call). With my last job, I dropped the BB (the brown color model) 3-4 times and it still worked.
Yup. The report said iPhones break d