iOS 9.3 Apple's 'most stable new release in years,' app analytics firm finds

In spite of some publicized glitches, including an activation bug that affected older devices, iOS 9.3 is Apple's "most stable new release in years," an app analytics firm said on Wednesday.

During the past eight days 9.3 has had a crash rate of just 2.2 percent, easily making it the most stable iOS release in circulation, Apteligent claimed. The software trumped even the latest version of Android, which saw its crashes hover around 2.6 percent.

Other major iOS releases have been much more problematic this month by comparison, especially iOS 8, 9, and 9.2. All three are more crash prone, and last week saw their crash rates briefly shoot over 3.2 percent. iOS 9.3 witnessed a spike around the same time, but remained well below other versions, even the comparatively stable iOS 9.1.

A Web link bug actually affects iOS versions as far back as 9.0.2, and turns out to be connected to Booking.com and its affiliated apps, rather than the iOS 9.3 update. Nevertheless, Apple promised to correct the problem in a future software update.

More seriously, the initial distributions of iOS 9.3 caused users of some older devices to be stuck on the Activation Lock screen. Apple ultimately seeded new builds, but some people may have had to restore their devices via iTunes.

57 Comments

ireland 17435 comments · 18 Years

About 8 years ago

I hope to God

the two biggest headlining features of iOS 10 are stability and speed with serious work gone into both areas. These are the two most important features of any operating system, but especially a mobile release. I'm done with all this fading-nonsense on iOS. Waking up and unlocking iPhones has been consistently more buggy on iOS 7 or greater than on iOS 6 or any release prior.

I'm done with the whole fading up and fading off crap. I much preferred the snappy way an iOS 6 iPhone would wake up and lock. The fading got old one week into using iOS 7. We need productivity and reliability, not this buggy fading nonsense.

And what's up with swiping to the next or previous home screen since iOS 7. On iOS 6 I could unlock and immediately swipe to another home screen. Now we must wait for a moment even on a 6s and we're nearly up to iOS 10 now?? Makes no sense to me. These are details that Jobs would have fired someone over. It's a disgrace IMO. On iOS 6 I could swipe to the next home screen even as the icons flew in during unlock. It was alive, vital and fluid and the whole OS felt more smooth.

Apple needs to stop throwing features at iOS and get all the existing ones to work right. I've had AirPlay and AirDrop issues for almost two years now on and off, and I'm talking with every device I own. And my wifi is quite solid and very fast; it's not an issue with my network, these are software bugs. Enough of the yearly marketing releases. Let's have a solid two years of Snow Leopard-releases to fix all this crap.

thewhitefalcon 4444 comments · 10 Years

About 8 years ago

ireland said:

I hope to God the two biggest headlining features of iOS 10 are stability and speed with serious work gone into both areas. These are the two most important features of any operating system, but especially a mobile release. I'm done with all this fading-nonsense on iOS. Waking up and unlocking iPhones has been consistently more buggy on iOS 7 or greater than on iOS 6 or any release prior.

I'm done with the whole fading up and fading off crap. I much preferred the snappy way an iOS 6 iPhone won't up and went to sleep. The fading got old one week into using iOS 7. We need productivity and reliability, not this buggy fading nonsense.

And what's up with swiping to the next or previous home screen since iOS 7. On iOS I would unlock and immediately swipe to another home screen. Now we must wait for a moment even on a 6s and we're almost at iOS 10. It almost makes no sense to me. These are details that Jobs would have fired someone over. It's a disgrace IMO. On iOS I would swipe to the next home screen even as the icons flew in during unlock. It was alive, vital and fluid and the whole OS felt more smooth.

Apple needs to stop throwing features at iOS and get all the existing ones to work right. I've had AirPlay and AirDrop issues for almost two years now on and off, and I'm talking with every device I own. And my wifi is quite solid and very fast.

Turn off animations, problem solved.

OS X is a lot worse than iOS is with regards to stability. It has a very old, failing file system that should have been replaced years ago, lots of legacy cruft that needs to be pruned...I feel Apple's time would be better spent there at the moment.