The Apple Watch may still have some user expectations to meet, but with a crash rate of 0.12333 percent, reliability won't be one of them, according to recently-released data from Crittericism. The San Francisco-based mobile app performance management firm provided raw data in an email to FierceDeveloper.
- The Apple Watch's performance rating has actually changed since its launch in late April, when it was 0.00833 percent, according to Crittericism data.
- Device compatibility with iOS has been steadily increasing since pre-orders began, with 51 percent of devices compatible in April and 70 percent compatible today.
- Apple OSs have been relatively stable since iOS 7, which had a crash rate of 2 percent, compared with 1.98 percent for iOS 8.3
- Android's OS mirrors iOS improvement in stability, from a crash rate of 2.63 percent for Ice Cream Sandwich to .29 percent for Lollipop 5.3.
"Apple Watch app performance rates are strong. In the mobile world, your app should have a crash rate under 1 percent," Crittercism said, adding that the reliability of the device has had a domino effect on smartphone uptake. "Adoption has gone down for incompatible devices. In contrast, adoption on compatible devices has gone up significantly since the release of Apple Watch."
This wasn't an in-depth study, but Crittercism's early data is helpful given how recently the Apple Watch made its debut. Consumers might be slightly more tolerant of performance issues on iPhones because they're so dependent on them, but the Apple Watch is an entirely new mobile experience. As such, expectations might be considerably higher, and adoption could drop swiftly if users were holding up their wrists waiting for apps to load. As Apple continues to help developers explore wearable computing at WWDC and beyond, this data proves it's an area to, ahem, watch.
Related Articles:
Report: 46% of iOS apps crash more than 1% of the time
Crittercism: Few apps can offer 99% uptime