MAJOR Browser shortcoming? really?

[Jrexxx]

why should MS have to rework the entire browser framework just because some idiotic web devs are putting </webkit> in their coding instead of basic html5 tags? It involves much less work if they slightly revise their code as what's been proven in the ESPN article.

So that people that are using their phones can do whatever they please on the web without thinking about webkit, or html5 or whatever. Why should I be thinking about this, it should just work!

@Se1fcr3ation, relax we're not talking about flash. Flash is DEAD!

 

[thed]

nah this is incorrect, cut the rope works just fine in IE as do many other things with touch events, especially on the test drive site. So there's probably webkit based coding there too.

You're talking about IE on your PC, right? Because I just tried cut the rope on my phone and it doesn't work. IE on WP is not the same thing as IE on the PC, it doesn't support touch events like the PC version does.

 

[eric12341]

fighting IE bashers Reply

So that people that are using their phones can do whatever they please on the web without thinking about webkit, or html5 or whatever. Why should I be thinking about this, it should just work!

@Se1fcr3ation, relax we're not talking about flash. Flash is DEAD!

I take it that you haven't read the previous posts in this thread or the ESPN article. Don't respond again till you do.

You're talking about IE on your PC, right? Because I just tried cut the rope on my phone and it doesn't work. IE on WP is not the same thing as IE on the PC, it doesn't support touch events like the PC version does.

IE on WP and on the PC are the same thing. I tried cut the rope back in January on my HD7 and it worked fine.

 

[Jrexxx]

I take it that you haven't read the previous posts in this thread or the ESPN article. Don't respond again till you do.


IE on WP and on the PC are the same thing. I tried cut the rope back in January on my HD7 and it worked fine.

Would you be kind enough to tell me where the ESPN thread is? And my argument still stands: I shouldn't even be having this conversation! The browser should work without me worrying about it!

 

[eric12341]

Would you be kind enough to tell me where the ESPN thread is? And my argument still stands: I shouldn't even be having this conversation! The browser should work without me worrying about it!

here go here:

Delivering Rich Mobile Web Experiences in Windows Phone 7.5 (ESPN.com Case Study)

 

[cluberti]

Note you can use fiddler as a proxy for your phone, which allows you to fudge the user agent string (amongst other things).

 

[ninjaap]

here go here:

Delivering Rich Mobile Web Experiences in Windows Phone 7.5 (ESPN.com Case Study)

"We understand that web development resources are always limited as you keep up with the increasing traffic from mobile devices, and the elusive "write once, run everywhere" promise of web development has not perfectly materialized. However, with IE9 for Windows Phone 7.5, we took a big step in the direction of this promise. By sharing a codebase with IE9 for the PC, we achieved identical support for new web standards and pushed the envelope on real-world performance with industry-leading hardware acceleration. We wanted to hear about developing for IE9 on WP7.5 from web developers directly, so we decided to collect some feedback and share it on the blog."

In other words, MS is trying to develop IE desktop mode in WP to be more like IE desktop in PCs. So if everyone agrees with this strategy, then everyone would understand why it's a bad idea to employ webkit or whatever other standards they are using for mobile mode. Instead of a web developer making one site for desktop and one for mobile, they simply have to make one for desktop. Just get rid of flash and start using the standard HTML. MS is actually trying to make it easier for everyone, if you think about it.

 

[thed]

IE on WP and on the PC are the same thing. I tried cut the rope back in January on my HD7 and it worked fine.

MS says they are the same, but they're not quite the same. Go try the acid2 test on your phone and you'll see a difference.

I just tried cut the rope again, and it looks like it works if you select Click to cut. It doesn't work on the default, drag to cut, because again, lack of touch events support. It's a legit issue and the OP didn't just make it up.

I'm not just some IE basher, I'm a web developer who cares about these things. I love WP, I just think MS wasn't fully honest about the browser and they have some work to do to get it up to speed.

Sent from my HTC Trophy using Board Express

 

[eric12341]

MS says they are the same, but they're not quite the same. Go try the acid2 test on your phone and you'll see a difference.

I just tried cut the rope again, and it looks like it works if you select Click to cut. It doesn't work on the default, drag to cut, because again, lack of touch events support. It's a legit issue and the OP didn't just make it up.

I'm not just some IE basher, I'm a web developer who cares about these things. I love WP, I just think MS wasn't fully honest about the browser and they have some work to do to get it up to speed.

Sent from my HTC Trophy using Board Express

her issue has to do with the user agent coding not because of the "lack of touch events". Read the article linked above yet?

 

[AngryNil]

Would Microsoft lose out in any way by implementing compatibility with WebKit-specific tags ?

 

[pjs37]

MS says they are the same, but they're not quite the same. Go try the acid2 test on your phone and you'll see a difference.

I just tried cut the rope again, and it looks like it works if you select Click to cut. It doesn't work on the default, drag to cut, because again, lack of touch events support. It's a legit issue and the OP didn't just make it up.

I'm not just some IE basher, I'm a web developer who cares about these things. I love WP, I just think MS wasn't fully honest about the browser and they have some work to do to get it up to speed.

Sent from my HTC Trophy using Board Express

I ran the acid test just now (Acid 3) and it got a 100/100 while my iPad got the same score on Acid 2 neither browser could render it properly. I don't know what that really means as one test is obviously newer than the other.

 

[thed]

her issue has to do with the user agent coding not because of the "lack of touch events". Read the article linked above yet?

No, pretty sure this has nothing to do with user agent strings. I just tried opening the OP's page in firefox using a WP user agent string (Lumia 800) and it worked. The issue here is with the WP browser.

Again, you don't have to take my word for this. You can try it yourself. Here's the user agent string I used:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; NOKIA; Lumia 800)

 

[ninjaap]

No, pretty sure this has nothing to do with user agent strings. I just tried opening the OP's page in firefox using a WP user agent string (Lumia 800) and it worked. The issue here is with the WP browser.

Again, you don't have to take my word for this. You can try it yourself. Here's the user agent string I used:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; NOKIA; Lumia 800)

Hmmmm... okay, so if it worked on with the 800, which has the exact same browser as the 900 and every other WP out there, then why doesn't it work for the 900? That doesn't make any sense if you're saying its the browsers fault.

 

[thed]

Hmmmm... okay, so if it worked on with the 800, which has the exact same browser as the 900 and every other WP out there, then why doesn't it work for the 900? That doesn't make any sense if you're saying its the browsers fault.

It didn't work on the 800, it worked on Firefox using the 800's user agent string. Some people were saying that this website is seeing the WP user agent string and disabling functionality. My test shows that that is not the case.

Edit: just for kicks I also tried it with the 900's UA. Same deal.

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; NOKIA; Lumia 900)

 

[ninjaap]

It didn't work on the 800, it worked on Firefox using the 800's user agent string. Some people were saying that this website is seeing the WP user agent string and disabling functionality. My test shows that that is not the case.

Got it! Thanks for clarifying for me.

What I don't get though, is the OP mentioned in her other post that the site used to work on her Focus. Why all of a sudden doesn't it work?

 

[thed]

Got it! Thanks for clarifying for me.

What I don't get though, is the OP mentioned in her other post that the site used to work on her Focus. Why all of a sudden doesn't it work?

This is the only thing I don't understand. I have no idea why it would've worked on the Focus. Maybe they used to just use html4 and javascript but then they updated the site to use html5 canvas right around the time she switched phones? It seems unlikely but I can't think of any other explanation.

 

[KingCrimson]

So that people that are using their phones can do whatever they please on the web without thinking about webkit, or html5 or whatever. Why should I be thinking about this, it should just work!

@Se1fcr3ation, relax we're not talking about flash. Flash is DEAD!

You do realize that it is in the interests of Apple/Google to have these websites optimized for WebKit and not HTML5 generically. Of course it hurts non-Webkit browsers and that's the point. The idea that Apple is an open-standards company is the most laughable thing ever. They are just about the most proprietary company ever.

 

[eric12341]

It didn't work on the 800, it worked on Firefox using the 800's user agent string. Some people were saying that this website is seeing the WP user agent string and disabling functionality. My test shows that that is not the case.

Edit: just for kicks I also tried it with the 900's UA. Same deal.

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; NOKIA; Lumia 900)

Seriously? Those UA string edits don't work 100% there's other ways sites identify which is which.

 

[N8ter]

You do realize that it is in the interests of Apple/Google to have these websites optimized for WebKit and not HTML5 generically. Of course it hurts non-Webkit browsers and that's the point. The idea that Apple is an open-standards company is the most laughable thing ever. They are just about the most proprietary company ever.

You do realize that it is in the interestst of Microsoft to have the entire WWW optimized for Internet Explorer (4-7) and not HTML4 generically. Of course it hurts non-Trident browsers and that's the point. The idea that Microsoft is an open-standards company is the most laughable thing ever. They are just about the most proprietary company ever.

See what I did there?

As an aside. WebKit originally came from the Browser packaged with the K Desktop Environment. App Apple did was contribute a ton of changes to it to make it better. Anyone can implement a browser on WebKit and you can even use a different JavaScript engine if you want (like Google has done). WebKit is open source, and it has the kind of Marketshare IE6 had during it's height.

It's dumb to not assume developers will target the browser engine with ~90%+ marketshare in mobile and not the one that just hit 1% well over a year after release.

iOS
Android
BBOS
WebOS
Symbian
Bada

All use WebKit. Anything else is an afterthought and will be investigated on an as needed basis when it makes sense to devote the resources to doing so.

The pain WP7 users allegedly feel is wholly Microsoft's fault, and nothing different than the pain Mac/Linux/Solaris/whatever users felt back when half the internet didn't render properly if you weren't running Internet Explorer. That lasted like a decade, and not developers are very apprehensive of doing anything "special" to support Microsoft's browsers.

 

[N8ter]

Seriously? Those UA string edits don't work 100% there's other ways sites identify which is which.

The problem isn't the UA string, it's the browser's rendering engine. Sometimes different browsers need things done slightly differently to achieve the same results.

Others have been trying to tell you this in a less obvious way, but that's what they're trying to say, basically.

This is why WebKit with a Lumia 800 UA mask may work, but Trident with a i.e. Chrome UA mask won't in many cases.

Some websites don't have conditionals based on what browser you use. They have one version that's served up to everyone. Either it works or you don't and they go back and add the conditions/modifications after issues arrive. For mobile sites it isn't worth testing on WP7 right now since so little traffic comes from those devices. Everyone else uses WebKit, sort of like how 80%+ desktop PC users just used the default IE back when.