please make this site iPad friendly

[andru]

I just found this awesome site via @kevinrose, I'm very impressed and love the videos. However, I'm disappointed that the videos are not compatible on the iPad. Please make this site compatible with the iPad.

Thanks!
AW

[angelo04]

This thread is 3 years old and no closer to being able to watch videos on an iPad.

[DeborahL]

Hi angelo04. Videos are playing fine on our iPads here. Can you be more specific about what kinds of issues you're having, and what version of the iPad and what browser you're using?

[josephnl]

I too have no problem watching Chow videos on my old 1st edition iPad. This was not always the case, but is now not a problem. All videos work fine!

[angelo04]

I have an Ipad 2 and the OS is up to date. If I click on the videos tab I see one big picture of the first video with no play icon. Also worth noting when I click on the videos tab the picture is way over sized and some what distorted.

On a positive note I was able to play a video that I clicked on on one of the side bar menus, it was not ful scren size and a sm all wondomw maybe 2 inches by 2 inches.

Hope that is enough info to troible shoot the problem.

Btw when using a kindle fire, no issies watching videos

[josephnl]

As I said, presently all CH videos play w/o any difficulty on my 1st generation iPad. They did not previously. Chow has fixed the problem. If you cannot view the videos on your iPad, it's an issue with your iPad. Suggest you go to an Apple genius bar and see if they can help you!

[angelo04]

My response qas intended for Deborah as she asked for more details.

[josephnl]

Sorry...was just trying to help you resolve your problem. It's clearly an issue w/ your iPad and not with Chow. And...I think my post is of interest to Deborah.

[JonParker]

I also have an iPad 2 and experience the same problems as angelo04. I think that's pretty indicative of a video problem. I work around it by watching the Chow videos on YouTube.

[DeborahL]

Hi angelo04 and JonParker. Unfortunately we don't currently have an iPad 2 in our suite of testing devices (we have an iPad1 and an iPad3), so we can't reproduce this error to pinpoint the problem--at least for the moment. But I'm continuing to look into it and will update you if we make any progress. Thanks for your reports.

[angelo04]

Thanks for the update.

[angelo04]

A simple solution. I tend to attempt to watch videos with my ipad slightly raise and in the Landscape position. That is when the videos don't work. If I rotate the screen to portrait the video will play!!!!!!! If I rotate back to landscape it will continue to play.

Silly solution but effective.

[DeborahL]

Well angelo04, we found someone on staff with an iPad2 and they reported the exact same thing. So you've stumbled on the perfect workaround!

Starting a video in landscape mode launches the video player full screen, which is most likely where the problem lies. Switch to portrait mode, which resizes the player, and you should be able to play the videos fine. Videos should also play fine after switching *back* to landscape mode at that point.

With so many versions of devices and operating systems and browsers out there, it's hard to account for every usage scenario, but we'll keep looking at this issue. Hopefully this workaround continues to do the trick for you in the meantime.

[GH1618]

The main annoyance for me is not the Flash videos — it's the fact that the display hops up and down as it is loading, due to the advertising space at the top changing size. This causes selection errors unless I wait for the loading to finish, which is also an annoyance on a slow link. This seems to me like a pretty easy thing to fix.

[JonParker]

With more and more content being put on video only, like Supertaster, it seems a bad move not to be compatible with one of the most popular devices around.

[mudaba]

In terms of feedback, specifics really help. It sounds as though everyone noticed that we were having some ipad video issues in the past couple of days. We're working on those and hoping to have videos playing again by next week, latest. Is there anything else that is a specific frustration on ipad that we can work on?

Thanks! Meredith of CHOW

[Becca Porter]

For some reason, my saved boards do not show up at the top any more. This makes it tricker to switch boards.

[Dave MP]

Hi Becca,

Your Saved Boards are now in a dropdown menu, accessible from any page. The dropdown is at the top of the screen, where it says Chowhound Discussions. You can find out more about this change here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/854055

Hope this helps!
Dave MP

[Becca Porter]

Yes, I discovered that after I posted. Thank you.

[Jalowski]

Hi Meredith.
To try to help you out, what I am experiencing is that the videos do not play on my iPad (the new). Curiously, the ad part of the video plays - but then it jumps to the next one; plays the ad, and jumps again and so on.
Hope this helps.
Regards.

[centralpadiner]

So much video content is an issue in and of itself. For those of us that are hard of hearing, and with the lack of closed captioning on almost all website generated video, a large group are being left out of web content everywhere these days.

[josephnl]

Agree completely. Whether or not it's stupid for Apple to have made the iPad incompatible with Flash videos is pretty much irrelevant. The fact is that zillions of Chowhounds access the site with an iPad, and would be better served if Chow were to be fully iPad compatible!

[Jase]

Zillions? Really?

[josephnl]

Well, maybe zillions is an exaggeration... it's probably more like 1 zillion! Kidding aside, I'm quite sure that with the enormous popularity of the iPad, there are many CH's other than me who access the site on this device. It would therefore be great if the videos were watchable on iPads.

[Jalowski]

Ditto

[Becca Porter]

Ditto.

[drewskiSF]

if it's Flash incompatibility, you guys should complain to Apple.

this is their fault more than Chowhound's. they decided to not support it regardless of how wide-spread it is on the Intra-webs currently.

Steve Jobs was grumpy one day and didn't want to support Flash on his mobile devices. you own his device. complain to them for incompatibility, not the content providers.

I don't know what other technical things are going on, but if it's a Flash thing this is not the right place.

my 2 cents.

[andru]

Mobile Flash has been killed by Adobe, and Chow has to get with the program.

http://www.businessinsider.com/adobe-...

[Mother of four]

Ditto3!

[Melanie Wong]

I can view Chow.com videos on my iPhone using the TV.com app from CBS Mobile.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tv-com...

[keithlb1]

Jobs isn't a flash fan. But exposure will bring the sites to Apple.

[enbell]

Pretty sure its the i-pad that's not compatible with Flash
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/a...

[vorpal]

Yup... it's the iPad's fault for not supporting Flash, which is just stupid, IMO.

[Melanie Wong]

IMO, it's a smart decision. I prefer the trade-off. I've set up my laptop browser to block Flash, and for as much browsing as I do (i.e., constantly), I only unblock it a couple times a week, if that. So for me, it's not a necessity when I'm mobile on iPhone or iPad.
http://www.chow.com/blog/2010/05/the-4-most-annoying-restaurant-website-design-flaws/

But on a lighter note,
http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/04/we-a...

[vorpal]

I would prefer to have the choice whether or not to have Flash enabled. Given the vast number of Flash games, videos, and websites that use Flash to deliver content, I quite like Flash as a medium.

While I love Apple, I have no intention, though, of purchasing an iPad, so it's not particularly important to me.

[GH1618]

Agree. I don't want Flash on my iPad.

[drewskiSF]

oh no! you've drank the Steve Jobs kool-aid!!

HTML5 is making in-roads, sure, but Flash is still out there en-mass.

i have an iPad and am pissed at Apple for this. all these sites i visit saying that the content can't display because of lack of Flash.

most sites are not running out to convert to HTML5 just to support iDevices (iPad/iPhone).

Grumpiness really won the day since Adobe has discontinued support for Flash on all mobile devices.

yeah for less functionality and compatibility! another win for Apple!!

i still love my iPad, despite this obvious and egregious shortcoming.

[GH1618]

I'm quite familiar with PCs and hated Flash long before I had ever used a Mac.

[MikeB3542]

Hmmm, site looks JUST FINE on my cheap-o Dell notebook. Me thinks the issue is with your iPad.

[ChinoWayne]

Please make the iPad compatible with the rest of the world. ;-)

[kibbles]

ipad uses HTML5 video players, the web standard.

chow uses Flash, a proprietary plugin owned by Adobe and not a standard part of the web.

wrapping video in standard HTML5 is better kung-fu than using an Abobe-owned format. most major publishers (including YouTube) have already switched to the standardized HTML5 wrappers for mobile devices.

chow has not.

[josephnl]

Any ideas how we can encourage Chow to switch over?

[kibbles]

i would recommend using the Contact info on this website and submit your complaint/suggestion. their main email is:

[e-mail].

more located here:

http://www.chow.com/about

...with millions upon millions of iOS users (15MM ipads alone sold in past 9 mos) they would be fools not to have something in the works.

[Jase]

Kind of disingenuous to claim that HTML5 is the web standard. It's being slowly adopted and there are many experimental players. But it's certainly not the standard by a long shot.

I can see where CH and many other sites wouldn't want to devote resources until things do stabilize.

[kibbles]

regardless of adoption speed, HTML5 is "standard" as "HTML5" is the official HTML spec, and lives natively within the "web" world and will render in any HTML5 browser w/o add-ons. Flash, while a popular third-party plugin, is completely not part of any HTML spec -- it's a "plugin", which means Flash content will not render in a browser w/o installing an after-market add-on. it is not web. it's Adobe Flash.

sorry but this is my trade.

as for waiting for things to "stabilize", this doesnt hold water -- using an HTML5 wrapper is stable, now, today. which is why all of the major web publishers, including YouTube, CNN, etc, have already done so.

[The Chowhound Team]

Folks, we've had to remove some unfriendly replies from this thread. We appreciate the functionality discussion here, but please steer clear of getting too personal when engaging other hounds.

[josephnl]

So CH Team...are you guys considering a CH app and/or changing your video format to make this site more iPad friendly? An update would be appreciated!