
The iPhone is the new IE 6, says mobile developer - ronnier
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/08/mobile-web-broswer-criticism
======
enomar
Koch said the iPhone is the new IE6 of 2000. As in, really great and popular.

He's just advocating we don't make the same mistake we made in 2000 (only
developing for one platform).

~~~
Herring
I realize TFA is a troll, but the problem wasn't just that it was one
platform. As I understand it, IE6 was at one time better than other browsers.
The problem was it was a de-facto standard, MS stopped innovating, & it became
increasingly outdated. Webkit follows standards & is open source.

~~~
dangrossman
Webkit is not much different than IE6 was 9 years ago. It implements SOME
parts of SOME of the standards (no browser implements everything, the
standards even contradict themselves in places). It also implements a large
array of "features" that don't exist in any published standard, or are only
part of a draft standard. Just like IE6 did, and which it is so widely
criticized for doing now.

MS stopped innovating because they were almost dismantled by the DOJ a year
after releasing it, in large part due to that browser.

~~~
qeorge
_"no browser implements everything, the standards even contradict themselves
in places"_

Thank you. I feel this is almost universally misunderstood.

If all browser makers followed the standards exactly we'd have no innovation.
And those who malign various browsers for not fully implementing "the
standards" would be wise to remember that the <blink> tag was once part of
said standards.

~~~
Herring
It's not an all or nothing proposition. Standards aren't perfect, yes, &
browsers aren't perfect either, but there are degrees to it. For example at
this rate it'll be a decade before IE supports html5 video.

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dasil003
Having read the article in my RSS feed first and then seeing this headline
here, the soundbiteification is a little painful. Dvorak himself would have a
hard time coming up with a troll title that good.

~~~
lanstein
Figured this was one to (read comments && read article)

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jeff18
I think the difference between IE6 and WebKit is that in all of Apple's
documentation they say _WARNING DO NOT USE -WEBKIT EXTENSIONS -- THESE ARE NOT
STANDARDIZED YET AND ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE_ and explain the dangers of using
standards that are currently in development.

Microsoft is kind of the opposite, encouraging people to use ActiveX,
Silverlight, etc. as hard as they can.

~~~
coderdude
Except that ActiveX and Silverlight are arguably products that require
adoption. -webkit extensions are not of this nature.

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nex3
A lot of people are saying "the difference with IE6 is that the iPhone is
standards-based and open," but I don't think that's right. The problem that
PPK is pointing out is that developing for a single browser is bad, full stop.
It doesn't matter if the browser is the holy incarnation of HTML5 itself, if
you're not testing a wide variety of browsers - or worse, relying on
proprietary extensions that you know not to be compatible - you're making the
same mistake that was made with IE6.

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pkaler
It's more like WebKit is the new reference implementation for HTML5. Look at
the changelog: <http://trac.webkit.org/> I see submits from Chromium, Apple,
Google, Nokia, RIM and others.

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xsmasher
When I think of IE6 I think of "popular (but frozen) platform that we have to
take pains to support," but that's not the iPhone at all. Safari is very
standardsfull, and still moving forward.

Beyond that, the good point - to develop for standards, not to a particular
browser - is obscured by a cloud of anti-iPhone rants.

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martingordon
This is just a rehash of a bunch of posts from two years that compared the
iPhone to IE4.

[http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/The_IPhone_Is_Internet_Explore...](http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/The_IPhone_Is_Internet_Explorer_4_All_Over_Again)

<http://www.joehewitt.com/blog/iphone_is_ie4_a.php>

[http://www.martingordon.org/blog/2007/08/20/on-the-iphone-
no...](http://www.martingordon.org/blog/2007/08/20/on-the-iphone-not-being-
ie4-and-how-iphone-web-apps-still-suck/)

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ronaldj
"Mobile browser detection is really hard. None of the reports I've read so far
show how they detect browsers."

From my experience it's pretty easy, here's one way to do it: <link
rel=”stylesheet” href=”mobile.css” media=”only screen and (max-device
width:480px)” />

<http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-mediaqueries/>

~~~
pyre
This test will only tell you "this is a mobile browser." It will _not_ tell
you "this is an iPhone browser and not a BlackBerry browser." _That's_ the
kind of detection that he's talking about.

Notice that part where he talks about mobile browser developers spoofing the
iPhone user agent string to get to a 'mobile' version of a web page and how
this might skew 'MobileSafari' penetration numbers if this is not accounted
for.

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est
Funny I said the same thing earlier :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077119>

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JMiao
um, ie 7 is the new ie 6.

