31 Days of iPad Day 7

Flickr Video HTML5 Fail

Announcing early is great, except when it’s only an announcement.

Supporting HTML5 video sounded like a win for Flickr. Today though it’s not fully in place. Watching them isn’t immediate it seems. This is frustrating more because Flickr is home to photos and video and isn’t a news or entertainment site.

CNN, Disney, and even our local paper already supports HTML5 without a hitch.

Living with glitches is normal for early adopters. Forgiving video delays is livable. Getting it right on base functionality though is not acceptable.

Flickr scrolling fail via Safari on Apple iPad

Demonstrated above is the normal pop up scrolling list for placing a photo in a group. Showing the first several and a bit of one it would appear scrolling would work. It doesn’t What is show is all that is available.

Placing photos in groups is central to Flickr’s appeal. It’s cumbersome to use without being able to work at the photo level. Scrolling doesn’t work for adding to sets as well.

Countering the Flickr site not being iPad ready, their team provides an iPhone/Touch application. The application works on the iPad.

Flickr had a chance to shine just a bit, but their chance for failure is big. Using an app for every website just isn’t practical and Flickr is one I’d definitely prefer be iPad browser friendly.

What sites are missing their mark for iPad usability?