Hi everyone,
Can we quickly revisit the question of whether to have one of "Touch" or
"Tablet" in our UA string under some circumstances? We need to work out
how Windows 8 Metro fits into our plans (bug 787786), plus the new pile
of touch-enabled laptops and desktops that I see in the glossy ads which
come with my weekly news magazine. The concern I see is that if we stick
with "Tablet" and apply it consistently only to tablets, it will be
increasingly not useful to web developers, and simply be a point of
gratuitous confusion and incompatibility.
Points to note:
1) I didn't think very hard when deciding to put "Tablet" in our current
tablet UA. I'm happy to admit it may have been a mistake. It hasn't been
there long and it's probably still possible to remove it.
2) Market data:
* iPad has "iPad" and "Mobile".
* Opera uses "Tablet".
* The RIM Playbook uses "Tablet".
* The Kindle Fire has "Mobile" normally, but not in Silk mode.
* The Nook Color in desktop mode has "Mobile". (Custom UA in mobile
mode.)
* Chrome on the Nexus 7 has neither.
* Stock Android browser on Asus Transformer (10") has neither.
* Windows Phone 8 has "Touch" and "Mobile" (as "IEMobile").
* Microsoft also uses "Touch" on "any machine with touch-capable
hardware", including their Windows 8 tablets.
As far as I'm aware, IE 10 on Windows 8 has the same UA in Metro and
non-Metro modes.
Consistent options we could adopt on this question:
A) Use "Touch" to indicate "has a touch-sensitive screen (and is not
already marked 'Mobile')". This would lead to us using it on tablets,
Windows 8 machines, and any other desktop PC with a touchscreen. It
would not be removed if a keyboard was _also_ present. This is
Microsoft's approach.
B) Use "Tablet" to indicate "has a tablet form-factor (N" or greater,
where suggested value for N is 7). So Windows 8 machines and other
touch-screen desktop machines would have the desktop UA. If a tablet
acquires a keyboard, like the Asus Transformer can, the token would
ideally be removed. This is our current approach, and (as far as I can
see) Opera's.
C) Use "Mobile", like the Kindle and Nook. I think it's unlikely we'd
want to do this for _all_ tablets, so let's say under a certain size,
N", and use the desktop UA above that size. This is Amazon's approach.
D) Use neither, like Chrome. UA sniffing is evil. Developers should use
the presence of a touch API to detect touch capability, and use flexible
layout to adapt to whatever screen size the user has. This is Google's
approach.
Options I want to avoid:
X) Stick with "Tablet", but find out it ends up meaning "Touch" anyway.
If you are arguing for sticking with Tablet, are you happy that we won't
be using it on touchscreen desktops and laptops? Do you think that's
what developers will expect?
Y) Use both. Ick.
Z) Use Touch on Windows 8, and Tablet everywhere else. This is bound to
throw people off.
Questions that I think are relevant:
1) What are web developers expecting? Are people making separate
touch-only sites? Or separate tablet sites? Or are some people doing
each of those?
2) Given the varied sizes of tablet, is a single "Tablet" token, which
must inevitably have a size cutoff, actually going to be useful? Touch
capability is at least binary.
3) Given the choice of "mobile or desktop", what sort of experience do
we think people on tablets should have? Does it depend on size?
Gerv
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