Re: know its ipad

Date	2011-07-12 10:13 +0200
From	Elegie <elegie@anonymous.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.javascript
Subject	Re: know its ipad
References	<kOmdnXEq7Zy_UobTnZ2dnUVZ_qidnZ2d@westnet.com.au>
Message-ID	<4e1c021a$0$13064$426a74cc@news.free.fr> (permalink)
Organization	Guest of ProXad - France

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On 12/07/2011 06:35, Andrew Poulos wrote :

Hi Andrew,

> How can I know if a web page is running on an iPad without parsing
> navigator.platform (ie. without browser sniffing)?

There seems to be a logical issue here. You want to find an iPad, yet 
you do not want to look for it :)

Browser detection is simply a technique, in itself it is neither right 
nor wrong, only its usage can be. Historically, people would use browser 
detection because they wanted to make sure that the host would support 
the features they had to run; this, however, appeared to be unsafe 
(because browser detection is never 100% certain), inflexible (because 
new browsers' families and versions would spawn regularly) and awkward 
(because javascript allows to directly detect features). Yet, this does 
not mean you cannot have fair uses for browser detection.

More dangerous was browser-inference with feature-testing. We have seen 
people trying to identify the host by testing the host features. This 
made less sense than browser detection: if you can assert that a feature 
is available, why not just use it?

So, what do you want to do? If you have a specialized design for 
iPad-like devices, then I would recommend to simply add a link on the 
standard design page, to let the user select the specialized design if 
he/she wishes to. In addition, it is also acceptable to parse the user 
agent string and set this design as default if you find out the user 
agent is an iPad (and of course provide a link to the standard design 
page, in case the user wants it).

Regards,
Elegie.

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Thread

know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-12 14:35 +1000
  Re: know its ipad "Richard Cornford" <Richard@litotes.demon.co.uk> - 2011-07-12 09:04 +0100
    Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-12 21:19 +1000
      Re: know its ipad 123Jim <jnkjnjnini@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> - 2011-07-12 13:09 +0100
        Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-13 07:35 +1000
          Re: know its ipad 123Jim <jnkjnjnini@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> - 2011-07-13 01:00 +0100
            Re: know its ipad 123Jim <jnkjnjnini@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> - 2011-07-13 01:14 +0100
            Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-13 15:57 +1000
              Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-12 23:29 -0700
                Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-12 23:31 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-13 17:25 +1000
                Re: know its ipad Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2011-07-13 12:53 +0200
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-13 04:20 -0700
                Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-13 04:34 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-13 04:58 -0700
                Re: know its ipad 123Jim <jnkjnjnini@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> - 2011-07-13 13:50 +0100
                Re: know its ipad dhtml <dhtmlkitchen@gmail.com> - 2011-07-13 11:02 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-13 11:59 -0700
                Re: know its ipad 123Jim <jnkjnjnini@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> - 2011-07-13 21:32 +0100
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-13 14:28 -0700
                Re: know its ipad 123Jim <jnkjnjnini@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> - 2011-07-13 23:46 +0100
                Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-14 10:01 +1000
                Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-13 16:51 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-14 02:04 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-14 15:11 -0700
                Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-14 21:54 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Yoda <jorgechamorro@mac.com> - 2011-07-15 03:14 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-07-15 13:06 +0100
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-15 08:14 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-07-15 20:00 +0100
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-15 12:12 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-07-16 01:14 +0100
                Re: know its ipad Jorge <jorge%jorgechamorro.com@gtempaccount.com> - 2011-07-16 08:56 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-07-16 23:07 +0100
                Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-17 16:40 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-18 11:33 +1000
                Re: know its ipad RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2011-07-17 19:54 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-18 02:19 -0700
                Re: know its ipad Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2011-07-18 21:41 +0200
                Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-19 07:13 +1000
                Re: know its ipad Dr J R Stockton <reply1129@merlyn.demon.co.uk> - 2011-07-19 20:18 +0100
                Re: know its ipad Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2011-07-17 10:34 +0200
                Re: know its ipad dhtml <dhtmlkitchen@gmail.com> - 2011-07-15 09:56 -0700
              Re: know its ipad Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2011-07-13 11:57 +0200
              Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-13 04:13 -0700
        Re: know its ipad Dr J R Stockton <reply1128@merlyn.demon.co.uk> - 2011-07-13 18:19 +0100
          Re: know its ipad "Evertjan." <exjxw.hannivoort@interxnl.net> - 2011-07-14 08:12 +0000
      Re: know its ipad Richard Cornford <Richard@litotes.demon.co.uk> - 2011-07-13 08:05 -0700
        Re: know its ipad Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2011-07-14 08:34 +1000
  Re: know its ipad Elegie <elegie@anonymous.invalid> - 2011-07-12 10:13 +0200
  Re: know its ipad Ry Nohryb <jorge@jorgechamorro.com> - 2011-07-12 04:19 -0700
  Re: know its ipad Bjoern Hoehrmann <bjoern@hoehrmann.de> - 2011-07-12 13:24 +0200

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