5 ms·

What amazes me is that Apple's infrastructure has markedly improved over the past few years. I haven't noticed as many Mobile Me/iTools-era sluggishness or flak

What amazes me is that Apple's infrastructure has markedly improved over the past few years. I haven't noticed as many Mobile Me/iTools-era sluggishness or flakiness since at least a couple years ago. And I've yet to get on an internet connection that isn't saturated by a download from Apple.com or a related service. Not to say Apple's perfect, but whatever changes they made after all the Mobile Me fiascos seem to be helping.

KC8ZKF 12y ago
I've noticed the exact opposite. It can take 15 seconds for my iPad to connect to the store over wifi. Similar results on my Windows desktop and my Apple laptop. A download will fail at least a third of the time. If I'm downloading more than one thing, or the download is large, say a movie, I almost always have to restart the download. Television shows continually reset themselves as unwatched, or split themselves into two seasons. Items that are downloaded to the computers or devices suddenly make themselves "unavailable" and have to be downloaded again.
- js2 12y ago
  Any chance you're using third-party DNS servers and not your ISP's?
  - coherentpony 12y ago
    Funny you mention that. I had awful service with AT&T's DNS servers. After I switched to using Google's everything's run as quick as a button.
    - js2 12y ago
      Not using your ISP's DNS can confound CDNs. In particular, I had to revert to my ISP's DNS servers from Google's specifically because my AppleTV was unable to stream movies otherwise. This was when Google DNS first launched, but you might give it a shot. I happen to have a router running dnsmasq, so I could use different upstream DNS servers depending upon the query (i.e. route CDN domain queries to my ISP and everything else to Google), but I found it not worth the trouble. TWC's DNS isn't that bad... I do override their search page for non-existant domains with NXDOMAIN however.
      - coherentpony 12y ago
        That's useful information that I didn't know. Thanks for sharing.
      - rdl 12y ago
        This is why anycast is better than DNS for cdn, IMHO :)
        Hengjie 12y ago
        How easy is it to set up any cast as opposed to geo-DNS routing?
    - yeukhon 12y ago
      That's exactly the reason I haven't switched away from my ISP's DNS because some services do run significantly better over my ISP's DNS instead of the non-ISP ones.
  - KC8ZKF 12y ago
    No. I am using my ISP's DNS servers obtained through DHCP. Also I have no problems with YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon instant video, etc. EDIT: Before anybody suggests that I try different DNS servers, I have.
deleted 12y ago
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nwh 12y ago
iMessage is still terrible. Messages don't make it to their destination, images fail to send properly, messages are duplicated.
- feld 12y ago
  I've never experienced this. Sounds like a general network issue, not an iMessage issue. Junk network equipment at home? Badly oversubscribed LTE/3g in your area?
- revscat 12y ago
  Never had this problem, and with one exception everyone I text with has an iPhone.
- ambler0 12y ago
  To the people saying this is not a problem, it is. In particular, iMessage seems to often get confused when trying to send a picture. The progress bar will get to half or even mostly full, and then just pause ...forever. It's not a connection issue. On several occasions after running into this iMessage issue, I have emailed the picture full-res without problems. That said, I don't think iMessage is terrible. I love it when it works as expected.
- superuser2 12y ago
  In my experience, SMS is still many times worse. Long messages arrive out of order and parts sometimes do not arrive at all. I've had messages to friends on AT&T delivered 36 hours late, causing confusion. iMessage, on the other hand, has mandatory delivery confirmation (so you can at least know if a message is going to be problematic) and optional read receipts.
  - abritishguy 12y ago
    Is SMS really that bad in the states? It works pretty flawlessly in the UK.
    - superuser2 12y ago
jigabit 12y ago
> I've yet to get on an internet connection that isn't saturated by a download from Apple.com This year Apple has usually maxed out at 20-30 Mbyte/s instead of the 100+ Mbyte/s I get from some servers. Move to KC — we also have great BBQ!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

KC8ZKF 12y ago

I've noticed the exact opposite. It can take 15 seconds for my iPad to connect to the store over wifi. Similar results on my Windows desktop and my Apple laptop. A download will fail at least a third of the time. If I'm downloading more than one thing, or the download is large, say a movie, I almost always have to restart the download. Television shows continually reset themselves as unwatched, or split themselves into two seasons. Items that are downloaded to the computers or devices suddenly make themselves "unavailable" and have to be downloaded again.

js2 12y ago
Any chance you're using third-party DNS servers and not your ISP's?
- coherentpony 12y ago
  Funny you mention that. I had awful service with AT&T's DNS servers. After I switched to using Google's everything's run as quick as a button.
  - js2 12y ago
    Not using your ISP's DNS can confound CDNs. In particular, I had to revert to my ISP's DNS servers from Google's specifically because my AppleTV was unable to stream movies otherwise. This was when Google DNS first launched, but you might give it a shot. I happen to have a router running dnsmasq, so I could use different upstream DNS servers depending upon the query (i.e. route CDN domain queries to my ISP and everything else to Google), but I found it not worth the trouble. TWC's DNS isn't that bad... I do override their search page for non-existant domains with NXDOMAIN however.
    - coherentpony 12y ago
      That's useful information that I didn't know. Thanks for sharing.
    - rdl 12y ago
      This is why anycast is better than DNS for cdn, IMHO :)
      - Hengjie 12y ago
        How easy is it to set up any cast as opposed to geo-DNS routing?
  - yeukhon 12y ago
    That's exactly the reason I haven't switched away from my ISP's DNS because some services do run significantly better over my ISP's DNS instead of the non-ISP ones.
- KC8ZKF 12y ago
  No. I am using my ISP's DNS servers obtained through DHCP. Also I have no problems with YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon instant video, etc. EDIT: Before anybody suggests that I try different DNS servers, I have.

deleted 12y ago

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nwh 12y ago

iMessage is still terrible. Messages don't make it to their destination, images fail to send properly, messages are duplicated.

feld 12y ago
I've never experienced this. Sounds like a general network issue, not an iMessage issue. Junk network equipment at home? Badly oversubscribed LTE/3g in your area?
revscat 12y ago
Never had this problem, and with one exception everyone I text with has an iPhone.
ambler0 12y ago
To the people saying this is not a problem, it is. In particular, iMessage seems to often get confused when trying to send a picture. The progress bar will get to half or even mostly full, and then just pause ...forever. It's not a connection issue. On several occasions after running into this iMessage issue, I have emailed the picture full-res without problems. That said, I don't think iMessage is terrible. I love it when it works as expected.
superuser2 12y ago
In my experience, SMS is still many times worse. Long messages arrive out of order and parts sometimes do not arrive at all. I've had messages to friends on AT&T delivered 36 hours late, causing confusion. iMessage, on the other hand, has mandatory delivery confirmation (so you can at least know if a message is going to be problematic) and optional read receipts.
- abritishguy 12y ago
  Is SMS really that bad in the states? It works pretty flawlessly in the UK.
  - superuser2 12y ago

jigabit 12y ago

> I've yet to get on an internet connection that isn't saturated by a download from Apple.com This year Apple has usually maxed out at 20-30 Mbyte/s instead of the 100+ Mbyte/s I get from some servers. Move to KC — we also have great BBQ!

deleted 12y ago
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