Restrictions on iPhones Safari
Temporarly i have to build an iPhone ready website for nulaz.com. But the thing, which is a little bit annoying is that there are some real unconvenient restrictions on the safari browser application which makes the difference between desktop safari and mobile safari on iPhone as well on iPod Touch. But let show you first what you actually get with the current Mobile Safari Version:
- HTML/XHTML (HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.9, XHTML mobile profile document types)
- CSS (CSS 2.1 and partial CSS3)
- Full DOM
- JavaScript (ECMAScript 3, JavaScript 1.4)
- XMLHttpRequest (Ajax!)
- Ancillary technologies (video and audio media, PDF, and so on)
- Up to 8 “tabs”
So this is what the mobile safari brings to you. But consider! A finger is not a mouse! So there are several mouse actions which have no equivalents to a touch event on the iphone’s surface:
- No right - click
- No text selection
- No cut, copy, and paste
- No hover events
- No drag ‘n drop
- No File Up and Downloads
- Screensize 320×480px
- still problems with google maps API integrated in a website
- No Flash, Java-Applets
- CSS: hover style, position fixed - not allowed
- … can be continued
As cool, smoothy and handy the iphone is, this constrictions you will have and most of them probably won’t change. Alltough it is a new way of developing web applications and you don’t have to be browser-independent!!! No Internet Explorer-, Opera- and Firefox-Compatibility Checks anymore!!! :-). And of course the CSS3 compatibility opens you a wide range of new features of designing your layout especially the -webkit extension for safari.
to be continued…
September 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
why is coding a website for the iPhone a new way of web developing, without compatibility checks? i don’t get your point. I think there are so many differences between all browsers (especially ie) that you have to adapt your code anyway.
and btw: you already own an iPhone … right? How do u like it?
September 16th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Developing webapps which are supposed to work on all browsers will stay as it was, in that case you are of course right. The differences between the browsers (esp. IE) you will have anyway.
But in my opiniion it is a new way of developing websites. If you just code a web application for iphone you don’t have to consider other browsers. Just safari is important for you. Also the possibility to use CSS3 and webkit for safari opens new ways of developing and designing websites for iPhones.
Imagine a company which provides different developers (web, mobile, iphone websites) iphone-website-developers will have the most convienient way to accomplish their websites.
October 15th, 2008 at 1:24 am
I’ve also noticed that Choose File button is disabled. Are you saying my webapp running under iPhone cannot upload any files?