Update: Here is a fantastic example of someone who has completely gone off the rails with respect to Flash…
Wow…nothing generates conversation in the tech industry like Adobe Flash. In just the past couple of days I’ve read articles about how HTML5 might be a ‘Flash killer’ along with articles on the release of Flash on the major mobile platforms, aside from iPhone. Along with those articles comes a lot commentary ranging from the people complaining about the lack of Flash on the iPhone to those with a strangely visceral hate for Flash who think that the lack of Flash on the iPhone is a bonus of the platform.
HTML 5 as Flash Killer
With all due respect to John Gruber over at Daring Fireball Adobe doesn’t view HTML 5 as a threat to Flash not because of anything to do with Internet Explorer but because of the history of HTML and CSS themselves. HTML 5 has a lot of great features and sounds like a real winner paired with CSS3 but modern browsers still can’t get the older standards right. There are still many workarounds required to get things rendering the same way on different browsers. Granted the situation is better than it used to be but these things simply aren’t an issue on a Flash-based user interface. While the browsers continue to play catch-up in the compatibility space Adobe will keep adding compelling features to Flash. I just don’t see HTML 5 being a serious challenger to Flash anytime soon.
Flash on Mobile Devices
I’d love Flash to be available on the iPhone. I really don’t get the reaction people have to Flash in general but when people go as far as saying that no Flash on the iPhone is a feature….please. Get a grip already. The iPhone experience would be that much richer with Flash available on the phone. HTML 5/CSS3 support on mobile Safari could be 100% compliant but until people start adopting those features on a mass scale it won’t be an alternative to having Flash available on the phone (see above).
I’m just not getting the dust-up over this stuff. Flash is a tool like anything else. Wider support of both HTML 5/CSS3 and Flash makes the web better, not worse. To those who would rather not have Flash exist at all: I think the web is a richer place with You Tube, Pandora, etc. than without them and they exist because of the ubiquitous nature of Flash. You seriously don’t? Because they wouldn’t exist right now if it weren’t for Flash.
AT&T 2nd level support really came through for me. After writing here about having my connectivity problems return and getting in touch with AT&T tech support I can happily report that I am now routinely getting 900kbps (on average) at my office. There was a problem with a tower in the area and it was fixed. I’m a seriously happy camper. Pandora here we come (again)….
Update: Problem solved!
Awhile back I wrote about having found a solution for the data connectivity issues that were plauging my iPhone in 3G mode. At the time a call to AT&T Tech Support made my reset my network settings which appeared to clear up the issues, and it did help….for about a day.
Since then I’ve been having the same problems and I contacted support again. The agent I spoke with was very helpful. I didn’t get the run-around and after some questions he told me that he was going to refer the case to a higher level of technical support. Despite the higher level of tech support not honoring my request for email contact I was able to get in touch with them to get the ball rolling on what I hope will be a resolution.
It certainly is odd though. More testing indicated that I was actually getting worse transfer speeds in 3G mode than if I switched the phone into EDGE mode. 3G was netting me about 50kbits/s while in EDGE I was averaging about 140kbits/s. Those are not the results I would have expected. Of course this is still only happening at my office. At home I routinely get 1400kbits/s download and about 400 up.
It certainly has been an aggravating experience but I have to say that my interactions with AT&T’s tech support have been very good so far. I hope that continues 
Update: I’m still having these issues….
Several weeks ago, after upgrading to release 2.2.1 of the iPhone OS, and also installing the AT&T network update that came right after, I started having issues with data connectivity problems on the 3G network. My phone, which normally gets a very fast and very stable 3G connection at my office, started having problems maintaining a 3G connection even while the phone would be sitting on my desk. Consistently I would have a 3G indicator with 5 bars for the signal strength but as soon as I started accessing the Internet, whether via Safari, Pandora, or any other application, the phone would drop to EDGE mode. As soon as the network activity stopped the indicator would switch back to indicating 3G. This happened consistently every time I attemped to access the Internet.
After about two weeks of this I was going crazy and downgraded my phone to the 2.2 OS revision (this was an adventure in and of itself) because the phone had worked perfectly with that release. And according to the various forums, etc. I searched the network update was only simple changes to icons, etc. that AT&T sent. Well, 2.2 worked perfectly, no more network problems. But I found out one of my applications, which had just been updated recently (Ambiance) required version 2.2.1 of the OS so eventually I reupgraded the phone. This time however I didn’t apply the network update from AT&T when I was nagged about it.
The phone worked perfectly with 2.2.1. Again no network/data connectivity problems. I then decided just a few days ago to reapply the network update and lo and behold I started having connectivity problems again.. After a few days of this I hopped on to the AT&T website and chatted with a customer support person. There were no indications of problems with any towers in my area and the only thing the agent could do was suggest to me to reset my network settings. I didn’t know that option was even there before so I figured I’d give it a shot.
I was completely surprised to find that my network connectivity problems had disappeared! I lost my WiFi settings but I can deal with that if I can get a solid 3G setup again. So far so good. I’ve been getting consistent, fast, 3G performance as I was before. I’m not quite sure what the network reset does aside from removing WiFi settings but it seems to have worked.
Here is the document from AT&T: Reset Network Settings
I have had absolutely awful 3G performance lately on my iPhone. The stability has just been unreliable. The phone keeps switching from 3G to EDGE at random. Sometimes it’s even switching down to GPRS when things get really bad.
I thought it was the 2.2.1 OS update as these things seemed to start happening after I did that update. That being said I downgraded my OS to version 2.2 because I never had these issues with that version of the OS. I thought for awhile that it worked because it seemed to be more stable. But after a bit of use it seems to be in the same boat as with 2.2.1 which just stinks. I’m paying for 3G and not getting 3G. It’s totally ridiculous.
Doing some searching it appears many others in the Chicago area are having the same problems. I’d really love to know what is going on over at AT&T. 3G hasn’t ever been great but it’s certainly been a lot better than this. Very frustrating.
Apple promised quite a bit with the 2.1 release of the iPhone and quite frankly, as a very new user of the phone, I was hoping it was going to fix all of the issues I was having with my phone. I’m still withing the 30 day period of being able to return it to AT&T and I’ve been pretty tempted, as cool as the phone is, to return it because it can be so damn aggravating at the same time.
I’ve had lots of application crashes (Apple-provided applications and stuff from the app store on iTunes). I’ve had awful 3G reception. I’ve had really awful backup times for the phone. I can’t really complain about the battery as it has been what I’ve expected. Could it be better? Of course but since I can keep the phone plugged in most of the day at work it really isn’t an issue for me.
In walks the 2.1 OS update and I have to say that my world has changed. Backup times are very quick. They were brutally slow before. 3G reception has been much improved from what I can tell in the short test I’ve been able to use it where it was an issue before (lots of apparently dead spots on my train ride into work….its always worked well at home though). I haven’t experienced as many application crashes either. Hoping that continues
I have to say I’ve gotta give a thumbs-up to this update. Its been a breath of fresh air in a very troubled, yet short, relationship I’ve had with the iPhone. Who knows…it may just rescue the phone from being banished at my house 
I wanted to follow-up quickly on my other posts about the issues I was experiencing with iTunes 8 and my iPhone on Windows Vista. The latest download of iTunes which is still labeled 8.0.0.35, included a rolled-back driver, usbaapl.sys (1.29.0.0) which was from the 7.7 release of iTunes, seems to have fixed the problems I was having (read: couldn’t use the software with my iPhone).
More information about this whole thing from Ed Bott here.
This is ridiculous. Did Apple not do any testing on this product before releasing it into the wild? Other websites are also reporting issues with iTunes 8 on Vista but thankfully I haven’t been having blue screens of death on my setup.
Here is the solution Apple is providing at the moment. Note the requirement to download a new installer.
Hoping this is going to fix the many problems I had again tonight…..
John Gruber writes that there is a fix for the insanely-slow sync of the iPhone with iTunes. Unfortunately it only works on the Mac 
I actually tried this today before reading the article because I was getting slow syncs between the iPhone and my MacBook Pro. I thought maybe the hub I had the phone plugged in to was USB 1.1-only (don’t remember that being the case but stranger things have happened) so I moved the USB cable directly to one of the ports on the MBP and the sync speed was far faster than via the USB hub. I’m not sure why this would be aside from maybe the hub running at USB 1.1 speeds.
On my Windows machine at home where I have the same problem the same fix didn’t work. Moving the cable directly to the PC didn’t result in a faster sync (and yes I have to sync with both). I know for a fact that the USB hub on the PC is 2.0 so maybe thats the reason.
