MobileCrunch is reporting that:
The iPhone is twice as reliable as the Blackberry after one year of ownership, a new study by SquareTrade finds.
Wow. I was a Treo user for years (WinMo and Palm OS) so I know the issues these devices can have in terms of reliability-- first hand. Having used the iPhone since its launch in 2007, I can confidently say I agree with this study. I have not used a BlackBerry for an extended period of time, so I don't have first hand experience with what can happen to one, however, I have discussed this topic with the support team at my place of employment and they concur that even the fabled BlackBerry runs into issues over time.
This is big news for users that are looking for a reliable device that don't have the patience for the potential troubles other devices can have in the Enterprise (well, even non-Enterprise environment for that matter). The study is broken into a few different subgroups including:
- Malfunction rate after 12 months
- Malfunction rates since purchase
- Probability of problems based on type (battery, call quality, etc)
- Distribution of malfunction per 100 incidents
This heralds greatly for the iPhone which had the lowest incidents in all categories except the touchpad/screen/keypad category. This includes: Includes burn-in, screen spots, dead pixels, and touch screen dead spots. This is higher for the iPhone due to the reported problems from first-generation iPhones. I have personally not encountered any of the issues listed here, but hey, maybe I am lucky. The study does mention that the iPhone 3G does not appear to have any of these problems like the first generation did.
All in all, this is excellent news for the iPhone and Apple, congratulations! Read the full report after the jump!
