The use case for a "supportsManifestVersion" API would be to allow marketplaces 
to determine whether they should show an app to a particular device. Imagine 
this scenario:

Acme App is for sale and uses manifest version X
User's device implements up to manifest version X - 1

If a marketplace doesn't know and can't detect that the user can't physically 
install the app (because their platform is too old or too new), then the user 
could be sent through a payment flow (navigator.pay), purchase the app, and 
then find out later that the app isn't able to be installed on their device. 
Having an API would allow the Marketplace to hide or blocks installs for the 
app. Similar APIs exist for the <video> and <audio> elements to detect codec 
support.

Having such an API would be critical for forwards and backwards compatibility.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mounir Lamouri" <[email protected]>
To: "Matt Basta" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Vishwanathan Krishnamoorthy" <[email protected]>, "Marcos 
Caceres" <[email protected]>, "dev-webapps" <[email protected]>, 
"Vivien Nicolas" <[email protected]>, "Tim Guan-tin Chien" 
<[email protected]>, "Jonas Sicking" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 9:46:34 AM
Subject: Re: Versioning system for manifest, Re: Migrating to W3C format, was 
Re: Icon sizes and display densities

On 25/07/13 19:55, Matt Basta wrote:
> In a similar vein (and not to de-rail conversation), can we plan to add an 
> API which exposes the platform's support for manifest versions?
> 
>     navigator.apps.supportsManifestVersion('moz')  // legacy manifest support
>     navigator.apps.supportsManifestVersion(2)
>     navigator.apps.supportsManifestVersion(3)
>     // ...

What would be the use case for that?

-- Mounir
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