[mprime]

Common sense would dictate that Flash/PDF's/.doc's/JavaScript is/are only necessary in a small number of cases, when there is no other way to provide that content. When you use it, you're making an assumption about what the user is willing and able to process on their end. If you do that enough, it becomes just as annoying as someone distributing a C file for everyone to use that relies on windows.h

What's worse still is that it took the iPhone not supporting Flash for everyone to realize that Flash actually isn't needed for most things.

[pyre]

> What's worse still is that it took the iPhone not supporting Flash for everyone to realize that Flash actually isn't needed for most things.

In the case of restaurants, it's even worse though. These are the kinds of businesses that people will want to look up information about while they are out (and presumably away from a desktop/laptop with internet access). So making it inaccessible to the kind of people that would want to look for your hours before deciding to become your customer is a detriment to you bottom-line.

Note that it mostly has to do with iPhone/Android making web browsing on a phone a less painful experience. Phones had browsers before that didn't support Flash.

[_delirium]

One explanation I've heard for the PDF menus is that they have to have PDF versions anyway for printing, so the least-effort solution is to just put the same PDFs online.

[rbritton]

In my experience having worked with restaurants, websites, and menus, they most often have humongous Publisher or Word files. PDF is the easiest form to coerce the content into while still retaining some degree of the original formatting. Oh, and they're also notorious for changing the menus constantly.

[mprime]

If they can't be bothered to run the PDF through a program to translate it to HTML, and then post a link to the PDF version, I don't want to do business with them.

If their menu is so fancy that it can't be easily translated into HTML, they're missing the point entirely.

[kscaldef]

Well, good luck with that approach, I guess. Personally I care a lot more about the quality of the food, the quality of service, the cleanliness of the restaurant, the ambiance, the price, ...

[mprime]

If I'm trying to order food from them, and their entire business model depends on me buying food from them, yet they're making it hard for me to find what food I can buy from them, they are either idiots or sloppy people who hire idiots to design their website. Either way, they're worthless.