there is definitely an anti-smear coating. Apple have it in their tech.specs. Its called an 'oleophobic coating'. I don't like it that there's no flash support for browsing. I know why there isn't its because if there was Apple would lose their monopoly with the App store with Flash games coming out.
Apple just give their excuses that lite isn't good enough and the full version would be too much for the phone. Lies
I love the iphone but its marred by this - Apple lying is my main gripE ; and how about there being a video camera on the new one but not the original one. We know that the original is perfectly capable of video recording but if Apple activated it there would a much less compelling reason to go for the new one. Apple know they can do it but they think average joe will go 'wow a video camera only possible with the new phone that so amazing compared to my 'old' iphone. I use the Nokia E71 for web browsing - it has flash lite and it makes a world of difference . The Nokia does it very well. I have an iphone but can't watch all the news clips off the BBC site .
Greed and also lies. We're not all stupid are we.
Flash is so retarded and bloated, so it wouldn't suprise me if they simply didn't include it for the very reason that they don't want the phone's browser crashing every 2 minutes. Remember, they're stubborn too
Also, with HTML 5 (that they're actively pushing) it would allow for embedded video, which will hopefully render flash obsolete.
As for flash games damaging the monopoly of the app store. I'm sorry, but Apple themselves proved that web-apps are a failure because you rely on a direct connection to the internet; no 'net no games.
I can see why they didn't want a "lite" version of flash, and to be honest would you want the "full" flash on a phone? A flash animation on a real browser is enough to make the fans go nuts, it would easily rape battery life - not something they'd want.. a phone that lasts 2 hours for web browsing
Now, video is a touchy subject. From a hardware aspect it is possible. The jailbreak rats have video recording apps working, but there was information circulating around the net that they chose not to implement it because of the type of flash used in the iPhone (see: number of read writes destroying life of flash chip). I can't verify any of that, but then why do they have to include everything in one model?
My TomTom does stuff that my last sat nav could do, but it does it better. I also know that they didn't include everything that it could
possibly do because they have a product map and they want to sell an update down the road; same logic here. They (Apple) have ideas for developing the hardware so they're pushing them out 1 feature at a time to maximise profit e.g. the cash cow effect.
I believe that most phone buyers concern themselves too much about spec. A 15 year old is more likely to buy a phone with a 8MP camera than a 2MP camera. It's the way of the world, and why big PC-selling stores make money by selling something that half the people on these forums wouldn't touch with a barge poll; some people like spec, others just want it to work and couldn't give a monkeys.
As for BBC news.. I don't use it myself, but I would have thought it was available through the iPlayer?
