When new versions of iOS are introduced, they inevitably bring with them some unforeseen bugs, and those bugs can lead to strange problems with third-party apps. iOS 16 is no exception. An analysis of user reviews in the weeks following the initial launch of iOS 16 found that social networking apps and dating apps were more likely to have issues on iPhones running Apple’s latest operating system.
To understand which types of apps are experiencing the most problems with iOS 16, UnitQ applied artificial intelligence to thousands of reviews of 4,800 mobile apps on the App Store, which it compared to reviews posted before the launch of iOS 16.
It found that social networking apps saw a 42% increase in complaints about app quality issues, coming in first. Dating apps came in second, with user complaints about quality issues increasing by more than a third, and health and fitness apps came in third, with an increase of 21 percent.
Specific to the type of problem, users of social networking apps complained that they were unable to upload photos, up by 90 percent. Reports of Apple Pay not working in the shopping app likewise increased by 90 percent, and complaints of blank screens in games increased by 85 percent.
These problems are not all in consumer-facing software. Business and productivity apps saw a 73 percent increase in users not being able to sign into the app. This was a big problem with the new iPhone 14, and it’s a good thing Apple fixed the bug in iOS 16.0.1.
It’s important to note that these numbers are a percentage increase in complaints about specific issues in app reviews, not that 90 percent of iPhone shopping app users can’t use Apple Pay, just that the number of complaints about this issue has almost doubled compared to before iOS 16 was released.
This analysis doesn’t mean that iOS 16 has more bugs either; UnitQ did the same analysis shortly after the release of iOS 15 and found that the system had even more problems. For example, complaints about excessive buffering in social networking apps rose by 2900 percent, and complaints about missing download buttons in the Photos/Video app rose by 1633 percent.
These iOS 15 issues were eventually fixed, and that iOS 16 will be the same.
