Well, all the trash talk between iOS users and Android users can quiet down now – well, a little anyway – because it’s now official: Apple iOS devices crash more often than Android-driven devices do.

A mobile device can crash for any number of reasons. The overall operating system stability has little to do with it, however. More often, crashes are caused by version incompatibility: Users don’t update their operating systems, or developers don’t update — or retro-date – apps, according to a study completed by Crittercism.

Because information security is such a hot buzz phrase right now, let us insert the following disclaimer:

Crittercism does not collect, store or disseminate any personal information – ever. Not in its studies. Not in its app download tracking – not in anything.

Now let’s dig into the meat of their data!

Between 1 December and 15 December of 2011, Crittercism separately noted crashes on 23 iOS systems and on 33 Android systems. Each system noted, though, wasn’t a different OS, per se, but versions of the OS platforms.

When compared together, there were 22 crashes on iOS systems and 17 crashes on Android systems.

From November and December of 2011, Crittercism registered 214 million app launches. During that time, figures for iOS app launch crashes might be skewed slightly because Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich hadn’t been available for much of it. However, iOS still edges out Android in each popularity-market quartile.

Top popularity or use crashes for Android: 0.15 percent. For Apple, 0.51 percent.
2d tier quartile: Android, 0.73 percent; Apple, 1.47 percent.
3d tier quartile: Android, 2.97 percent; Apple, 3.66 percent of the time an app was launched.

Why do apps crash anyway?

Well, a closer look may indicate reasons that are not hardware-oriented.

Operating system versions noted in the study included iOS 5.1, which topped all version crashes at 28.64 percent, iOS 4.2.10 at 12.64 percent and iOS 4.3.3 with 10.6 percent. While older Android platform versions also span several updates, the numbers per OS version are still lower across the board.

End prognosis: Either iOS users don’t bother updating their operating systems and attempt to use incompatible app versions, or developers do a better job retrofitting apps for older Android operating systems.

Either way, you can’t deny the math: Apple iOS devices still crash more often on app launch than Android devices do.