Apps on iPhone 5s Crashing at Twice the Rate as on Other iPhone 5 Models

Whenever there is a new operating system, it’s not surprising to see apps crash at a somewhat higher rate, given all the changes.

But one of the interesting things in Apple’s latest iPhone transition is that apps appear to be crashing at a much higher rate on the new iPhone 5s as on either the iPhone 5c or the iPhone 5. In its look at hundreds of millions of app launches since the debut of the latest iPhones, Crittercism says that programs crash about two percent on the iPhone 5s, as compared to just under one percent on both the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5.

“Anytime there is new hardware or software release, we see issues,” Crittercism CEO Andrew Levy said in an interview. “Inevitably, over time, those issues get resolved.”

Levy said that perhaps the reason the iPhone 5s is seeing more crashes than the equally new iPhone 5c is that, while developers were able to check their apps for compatibility with iOS 7 during several months of beta testing, the new hardware wasn’t available ahead of time. The iPhone 5s packs a new 64-bit A7 chip and an M7 coprocessor, while the 5c is nearly identical, internally, to the iPhone 5.

An Apple representative declined to comment.

Levy said that it’s not uncommon to see higher crash ratios when new devices or operating systems come out. And Apple has done a pretty good job of making a major transition — the shift to 64-bit processors — nearly invisible. With past transitions, including the move on the PC desktop to 64-bit, developers had to write new drivers and other code.

“The good news is that Apple is certainly aware of issues,” Levy said. “They’ve pushed out two iOS updates for iOS 7 … Apple is doing a really good job of addressing these issues as they come up.”