Study: Android Apps Crash Less than iOS

In more news that is sure to fuel the competitive fires of Google (GOOG) Android and Apple (AAPL) iOS users, a new study by Crittercism has found that Android is the most stable mobile OS on the market, with a majority Android KitKat crashing less than 1 percent of the time. KitKat’s 0.7 percent crash rate was less than half that of Apple’s iOS 7.1, which sported a 1.6 crash rate.

In its report, Crittercism analyzed statistics from more than 1 billion iOS and Android applications to judge the reliability of each operating system. Crittercism found that gaming apps are the least stable (big surprise there) and overall response times are the fastest in Canada. Google Analytics also won in terms of lowest error rates per service (0.1 percent). Finally, tablet apps were more likely to crash than their smartphone counterparts.

Overall, Crittercism found that the complexity of mobile services working in conjunction with multiple cloud services are the biggest culprits when it comes to the speed, efficiency and reliability of any mobile OS. Performance also varies based on network stability, geography and a host of other factors that can go unaccounted for when it comes to the performance of individual devices. And with both Android and iOS being relatively new in terms of established operating systems, there are bound to be issues no matter which you prefer.

“There are a 100 million factors that affect the performance of a mobile app,” Crittercism CTO Rob Kwok explained to TechCrunch. “As new mobile platforms such as wearables grow in adoption, the challenge to provide a consistent, high-quality experience to users will be even more difficult and mobile teams need purpose-built solutions to manage overall app performance.”

While the report may lean in favor of Android in many categories, it isn’t all bad news for iOS users. According to DigitalTrends, iOS performance rates have been steadily improving, with iOS 7.1 registering a crash rate of 2.1 percent compared to iOS 6, which registered a crash rate of 2.5 percent. However, Apple still has a ways to go to catch up Gingerbread, Android’s buggiest OS version, which has a 1.7 percent crash rate.

And even if Android is the most stable OS, that doesn’t make it the clear winner in terms of best mobile OS outright. Fortinet recently found that 96.5 percent of all mobile malware is Android-based, while Marble Security Labs found that social media and news apps are among the riskiest categories for Android users.

Like all operating systems, Android has its ups and its downs, and its important to keep sight of both when measuring which OS is right for you. Like the age-old decision between chocolate and vanilla, it’s probably best to hold your judgment until you’ve gotten a taste of both.