KETV in Omaha has created the “next generation of online weather information.”

http://www.ketv.com/weather/16842110/detail.html#

Do you love your iPhone? The new page uses pods, much like the Apple phone. You can move tiles around, add and delete tools until you have only the weather information you want. These tools will allow you to drag the weather information that is most important to you to the top of the page. You will be able to select your favorite cities to watch.

Wow, does that look gimmicky. I’m on a PC, not an iPhone. Optimize for the platform. There’s a great reason why the iPhone’s interface doesn’t emulate OS X.

Some great advice if for users who might be having trouble accessing the web site:

Another solution would be to bring the firewall settings to medium or medium low and try to get into the site.

Medium-low? Is that like a medium-rare firewall? My firewall is on or off (uncooked or well-done). There’s no “medium” option. And what the heck does having a firewall do with their web application?

Q: Why do I need downloads to view the radar?
A: Microsoft’s Silverlight is only recommended to view Live Radar

(Hello, grammar police? I guess you shouldn’t expect New York Times writers at a TV station).

But, of all the quotes …

Q: Why is my new weather page slower?
A: The new weather site using the latest web technology. Some of the graphics will take longer to load, especially on older systems and computers with slower access to the Internet. Some dial up users will not be able to use portions of the site.

The new weather site using [sic] the latest web technology. (Silverlight for video — they aren’t using it anywhere else according to the FAQ). The graphics are bigger and may take longer to load. Uh huh. Poor dial-up users — you’re completely out of luck.

Many users, slowly, over time, come to accept that new applications will run slower on their existing hardware.

When are the software developer’s going to stand up and say — enough is enough! We’re going to write tight, fast, optimized code? We’re not going to settle for users having less than stellar experiences if at all possible!

Unfortunately, I don’t see it happening — until the users just say, NO MORE!

If you’re involved with coding, what are you doing to make sure the performance of your software doesn’t decrease every release? Sure, sometimes new features means there might be a perf hit, yet performance decreases far too often. Think about the power under the hood of the computer you’re reading this on right now — it’s awesome! And so much of it is wasted. :(