The 2016 quarter four (Q4 2016) State of Mobile Device Performance and Health Report, released by Blancco Technology Group at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, indicates that Android devices are more reliable than iPhones.

The report said, "iPhones have been weighed down by a multitude of performance issues and high failure rates in the last year."

It noted that particularly, the iOS failure rate has consecutively increased quarter over quarter – from 15 percent in Q4 2015 to 25 percent in Q1 2016 to 58 percent in Q2 2016 to 62 percent in Q3 2016.

"Although the iOS failure rate (62 percent) has since stabilized in Q4 2016, Apple is still playing catch up with Android (47 percent)," the report stated.

Additionally, the iPhone 6 has been the worst performing iOS device consecutively for four quarters with the highest failure rate compared to other models – 25 percent in Q1 2016, 29 percent in Q2 2016, 13 percent in Q3 2016 and 15 percent in Q4 2016, according to the report.

The report also noted that the newest iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models aren't exempt from problems – making the two phones part of the list of iOS devices with high failure rates in Q4 2016 at 3 percent failure rate each.

"Crashing apps, overheating and headphone malfunctions have persistently plagued iPhones in the last year," it stated.

Even key social media apps faced challenges on iPhones over the period in question.

"Despite their reign as three of the most popular social media apps in the world, the Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat apps repeatedly crashed on iPhones in the last year," the report said.

Commenting on challenges iPhone users face in getting a problem diagnosed and fixed on time, Chief Strategy Officer for Blancco Technology Group, Richard Stiennon said "when devices lag, crash or stop working altogether, one of the first things users do is head into their mobile carriers or the device manufacturers themselves to diagnose what's causing the problem – and fix it quickly and efficiently."

He added: "Mobile network operators and device manufacturers refer to this as the post-sales customer service and repair experience – and speed and efficiency are two of the most critical aspects of this experience. But without an easy-to-use, robust diagnostics solution, mobile users are often left frustrated with long processing times and inaccurate diagnoses, which in turn, leads to lower Net Promoter Scores and unnecessary returns for mobile network operators and device manufacturers."

Android

Android devices, according to the report, failed less and have shown signs of improvement over time - with the failure rate decreasing by almost half from 85 percent in Q4 2015 to 44 percent in Q1 2016 to 35 percent in Q2 2016.

Samsung consistently had the highest failure rate among Android manufacturers for five quarters in a row – at 27 percent in Q4 2015, 43 percent in Q1 2016, 26 percent in Q2 2016, 11 percent in Q3 2016 and 16 percent in Q4 2016.

Camera, battery charge, and USB glitches have been a constant source of problems for Android users.

But since first appearing on the list of top Android crashing apps in Q2 2016 (12 percent), the Google Play Services app has shown signs of improvement and its crashing rate has dropped to 10 percent in Q3 2016 and 5 percent in Q4 2016.

Meanwhile, at Mobile World Congress 2017, demos of the Blancco Mobile Diagnostics and Blancco Mobile Device Eraser solutions are on display at Blancco's booth.

In addition, key subject matter experts from Blancco are conducting live presentations on emerging mobility trends, mobile processing challenges, and mobile security risks.