iOS users have had plenty of reasons to crow about Apple handsets recently, but here’s one for the Android crowd: Android devices running the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop mobile OS have a lower application crash rate than devices running Apple’s much-vaunted iOS 8.

The data was pulled by mobile application performance management company Crittercism, which claims that Lollipop’s crash rate for apps is a miniscule 2 percent, compared to iOS 8 which crashes 2.2 percent of the time.

The same study also shows that iOS 8 crashes more than its predecessor, iOS 7.

So why only “kinda”? Firstly, because there’s so little difference between the two numbers. Applications crash on Lollipop just .2 percent less than on iOS 8, which is a barely-noticeable difference of 2 crashes in every 1,000 uses. Considering that both systems are hovering around 2 percent in their crash rate, that’s pretty great overall.

Secondly, because only a tiny percentage of users actually run Lollipop. According to current stats, Lollipop is installed on a dismal 1.6 percent of Android devices — compared with 72 percent of iOS users who run iOS 8.

The most popular mobile operating system used by many Android users is Jelly Bean, which first arrived in 2012 and was last updated in 2013. Sadly, I was unable to find any relevant Crittercism crash reports for this mobile OS. Other Android versions including Kit Kat and Ice Cream Sandwich both have a crash rate of 2.6 percent: still not bad, but certainly not quite at the level of Lollipop.

Ultimately, this is just a guide — which can vary greatly depending on your own personal usage. Which device you’re using, what apps you’re running, and a variety of other variables can all have a big impact on the crash rate of your specific handset.

It does suggest, however, that no matter what other differences there might be between Android and iOS, the regularity of applications crashing on you isn’t one of them.

Via: ZDNet