Apple Inc.’s latest operating system, iOS 8 is exhibiting an app crash rate that has eclipsed that of its predecessor.
Mobile app performance management company Crittercism reports that between September 17th and September 22nd it found that devices running the new OS crashed 3.56 per cent of the time.
On Wednesday, Apple also had to yank its first update for iOS 8 after customers complained about reports that their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smart phones could not connect to a cellular network.
iOS 8.0.1 was supposed to fix some bugs on the OS but within minutes of its release, users flooded the iPhone support forum with their complaints.
The developments has led Apple to recommmend that iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users reinstall iOS 8. The company offerred users instructions for reinstalling iOS 8.0 through iTunes. Apple said it is preparing a new software update iOS 8.02. to fix the issue.
To get the instruction click here.
“On the same devices running iOS 7.1 apps only crashed 2 per cent of the two per cent of the time, though that figure is up from 1.6 per cent in March,” according to Jeannie Liou of Crittercism.
The crash rate was measured from about 20,000 mobile apps that the app performance firm monitors for clients such as Netflix, eBay, Groupon, PayPal and Yahoo.
The highest crash rates on iOS8 came from older iPhones like the iPhone 5, 5C and 5S. Apps on these machines crashed 3.3 per cent of the time.
Apps on the brand new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets crashed 2.6 per cent and 2.1 per cent of the time, respectively.
Computerworld quoted Crittercism co-founder Andrew Levy as saying the higher app crash rates for iOS 8 could be attributed to the large number of new application programming interfaces that Apple embedded on the new OS.
“Some of those APIs are for screen optimization, some are for GPU usage. It’s actually a combination of things,” he said. “Apple deprecated some APIs, changed others, making it really tough for the ecosystem to keep up.”
Some of the older apps which were meant for iOS7 were more likely to crash under the new OS.
Online business publication Bloomberg.com, reports that the iOS 8 problems might share a link to the 2012 snafu Apple had when it introduced is Maps program.
The publication reported that Josh Williams the mid-level manager overseeing the iOS mobile software group was also in charge of quality control for Maps. He was removed from Maps after Apple received numerous complaints that the software provided users unreliable directions and mislabled landmarks.
Williams, however, remained in charge of testing iOS, according to Bloomberg.