Research firm finds iPhone failure rate increasing, eclipsing Android

iPhones are beating Android at... being less reliable? That's the chief finding of a research report by analyists at Blancco Technology Group. Over a study of five quarters, Blancco has found that the worldwide failure rates of iPhones have not only increased significantly over the past 15 months, but have eclipsed Android phones' failure rate.

In Q4 2015, Apple's iPhone failure rate was 15 percent. By Q4 2016, this had increased to a shocking 62 percent. In comparison, Android products went from a dismal 85 percent failure rate in the end of 2015 to a less disappointing (but still poor) 47 percent. This means that over the past 15 months, iPhones went from being one of the most reliable smartphones to the least, and vice-versa for Android.

"Failure" is defined by Blancco as "devices that had excessive performance issues that could not be resolved", and it seems that the iPhone 6 is what hurt the analysis the most. Over the past year, the iPhone 6 has seen numerous hardware issues, battery issues, and software issues caused by iOS updates.