Speaking of Ironies: Adobe Flash, Al Gore and the iPad criticism on his Current TV
April 30th, 2010
Daniel Eran Dilger
Earlier today, John Gruber of the Daring Fireball posted the line:
“Irony: Me, using my iPad to watch a video from the WSJ of Adobe’s CEO talking about how essential Flash is to publications like the WSJ.” ★
It reminded me of my own experience in being directed to Al Gore’s Current TV, by video blogger Ben Hoffman, who had created an “iPad sucks” video for broadcast on Current’s Tech Report. Current still uses Flash to present its videos (the entire site is tagged “beta”).
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In the video, Hoffman hilariously (that was irony on my part) visits a series of Flash-based website (Hulu, Comedy Central, etc) and demonstrates how he can’t watch the videos, sort of like Ben Stiller complaining about how he can’t eat flan while skydiving.
But the irony wasn’t that Gore was failing to exercise any evilly draconian censorship to prevent his broadcasting network from criticizing the products of the electronics company that he serves as a board member.
The ironic twist came halfway through the Hoffman video (being served up via Flash on my brand new MacBook Pro sitting on a very fast Internet connection) when playback crapped out and got stuck for nearly fifteen minutes “buffering,” only to restart and then fail again. On an iPad, even the first half of the video fails to play, as Current does not support HTML5 nor H.264 video playback.
I never got to the end, so I don’t know if Hoffman ever pointed out that Flash-free iPad users can alternatively download their TV shows from iTunes and not deal with the ads interruptions and playback issues of adware sites, but if he never got around to presenting that side of the story it would be ironic that he’s contributing content to one of the few legitimate broadcasting networks that, ironically, nobody in America watches.
The iPad Sucks: Tech Report // Current
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10 comments
Steve Jobs is my personal hero. Admire everything he’s done except involving Al Gore.
Superman says Flash is no longer welcome at his pad.
Current shows are available in the podcast section of iTunes. Flash need not apply. Ironically.
Totally agree with this.. just clicked the link to watch the video at Currents site and it just wont load – on a brand new mac connected via ethernet. Pitiful :)
I’ve been withholding my vote for Al Gore every since he got onto the board. And just for the Flash fans, a little video… :) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNf9rEPoc8Q
As per bparry, the Hoff’s fabulous-Flash video doesn’t work here either (recent MB , latest plugin) . A perfect answer to his own bullshit!
Same here – the WSJ piece would not play on my iMac after repeated attempts over two days!!!!!! Perfect! Flash SUCKS!!!!!! RIP
Another irony: I just installed ClickToFlash and found out almost all ads on http://www.appleinsider.com were Flash except….. a CS5 app from Adobe :-)
“ad” not “app”
Geez, “Irony” overload! Apple is essentually giving the rest of the world a hard push towards html5 and although i don’t really like bullies, it’s probably for the best.
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