Mobile website comparison: WP 8.1 vs. Android. Why do they look so bad on WP?

[bsoder13]

I recently switched to WP after the announcement of 8.1. I picked up a Nokia L920 and have been enjoying it very much! I installed the Amazon.com app right off the bat, but can't believe how terrible the app looks/works. So, I jumped into IE to check out their mobile website. I was very surprised to see how different a mobile website looks on my L920 vs. my Nexus 5! I tried to find an answer online without any luck. Does anyone know the reason why a mobile website would look so different on a Windows Phone compared to other platforms? :devil:

 

[Athull]

I recently switched to WP after the announcement of 8.1. I picked up a Nokia L920 and have been enjoying it very much! I installed the Amazon.com app right off the bat, but can't believe how terrible the app looks/works. So, I jumped into IE to check out their mobile website. I was very surprised to see how different a mobile website looks on my L920 vs. my Nexus 5! I tried to find an answer online without any luck. Does anyone know the reason why a mobile website would look so different on a Windows Phone compared to other platforms? :devil:

So are u running wp8.1 now? If so make sure data savings is off and also see whether website preference is mobile or desktop?

 

[hope4wp]

wait!! what????

 

[bsoder13]

So are u running wp8.1 now? If so make sure data savings is off and also see whether website preference is mobile or desktop?

Thanks for the tip. I'm running WP8.1 and I turned off data savings, but the information on the mobile version just looks so different than the mobile version of Amazon.com on my Nexus 5. I was curious if WP just renders websites differently that doesn't allow WP to show as much info on the page in IE11?

 

[seabasstheSwordsman]

Thanks for the tip. I'm running WP8.1 and I turned off data savings, but the information on the mobile version just looks so different than the mobile version of Amazon.com on my Nexus 5. I was curious if WP just renders websites differently that doesn't allow WP to show as much info on the page in IE11?

As a web developer myself, coding a webpage for mobile IE is very different from coding a webpage for mobile Chrome and Safari. For example, if I want to force your webpage's viewport to be a certain width, Chrome and Safari requires you to use a meta tag while the mobile IE and Opera uses css to define the viewport. Microsoft also wrote their own touch input stuff while chrome uses another. If you have gotten an android phone other than the Nexus lines and tried it on the stock browser, you would probably notice some differences there too. Coding webpages for mobile phones is a mess right now since they're only starting to set standards. Therefore, it's not a surprise if a web developer may put in less effort into wp due to the lower marketshare of wp.

 

[bsoder13]

Much appreciated @seabasstheSwordsman! Hopefully the improvements in WP8.1 will encourage developers to improve their sites!

 

[Ordeith]

@seabasstheSwordsman
IE uses the W3C standards for touch inputs. Google lost interest in supporting standards some time ago. Chrome remains proprietary.

 

[Fade_z]

I have the issue with ie11 that non of the pictures load on certain sites but work fine on others

 

[Chris_Germany]

I have the issue with ie11 that non of the pictures load on certain sites but work fine on others

Data save turned on?

 

[manicottiK]

@seabasstheSwordsman
IE uses the W3C standards for touch inputs. Google lost interest in supporting standards some time ago. Chrome remains proprietary.

To be fair, those W3C standards were submitted to W3C by Microsoft and I believe that they came after Apple made its Webkit touch changes.

So, while Microsoft is following the standards and those standards are a more logical and honest way of handling the loss of a "mouse hover" event than what Apple did, let's not give them too much credit. also, let's not beat up on Apple (and, by extension, the other Webkit browsers) too much given that their implementation, while it "lies" to the browser about what event really happened, it works quite well and doesn't require web developers to make changes to support the events.

The Microsoft way is better, the Apple way is easier. Beta vs VHS again? Maybe.

 

[csd_images]

The MS touch standard (known as MSPointers) isn't web only it's designed for any input be it mouse, pen or finger. MS Pointers is now Candidate Standard as of last year and is supposed to be device agnostic. It's just that developers are lazy and will code to 'webkit' Standards first because of the nice shiny toys that engine brings instead of writing standards browser agnostic code. MSPointers was introduced in IE 10 and for backwards compatibility you can use the polyfil hands.js

There is a increasing backlash against vendor prefixes which left unchecked could force us back into the same situation that IE 6 gave us.

Most of the problems I've ran across:

• Browser sniffing rather than feature sniffing using Modernzr
• Ignoring IE due to irrational hatred of the browser, scarred from the browser wars or a Hipster (I hate anything MS and will not pollute my Mac/Chromebook)
• Don't have a PC or Windows tablet to develop on
• Proprietary or non-optimised code
• Poorly set up break points in CSS or IE fallbacks

The most common fault I see is that menus just don't work with IE properly because of how it's touch event works. So blame the website developers essentially. IE is cross-device capable in that it's the same engine across all devices and the same interactive behaviour. There is also potential issues with the iOS standard due to patents that have not fully been cleared up thanks to Apple playing hard ball.

Welcome to the wonderful world of web design/development when you're left at the mercy of the tech giants whims.

 

[Ordeith]

The W3C standard (known as pointer events) is what IE supports. Google wants chrome to be the next IE6, and are doing their darndest to foster and create a chrome only internet. So much proprietary instead of supporting available standards, meet the new Google.