I pondered this question on Saturday when I discovered that my iPhone calendar contents had spontaneously vanished. I decided it wasn't just the fact that I had been in the not-to-my-taste Ocean Terminal that had caused this. Anecdotally there are a lot of stories out there about people losing data on various (Apple and 3rd party) iPhone apps.
Thing is, developing software that doesn't do stupid things with your data in some weird corner case, and testing it like crazy to make sure it doesn't, are hard tasks. And in a world where there is a gold rush to get apps up on the app store first, and get noticed to earn your 100000 lots of $0.99 (less 30% or more), corners get cut. Some developers just don't know how to do all this stuff, and some just take the cynical view (or are made to take it) that they don't have time.
There's a long way to go before Joe Random phone user understands the value of the apps they use, or more accurately what goes into building them. But maybe as the market matures the lower quality apps will get weeded out, even the Apple ones, and some semblance of rationality will impose itself. In the meantime, back up your data.
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