iPad browser: forced to mobile version of websites

DonnaLN wrote:

Over 9k people have viewed this topic. Hopefully Safari gets the message that they need to make an update

...

Come on Safari, make the change.

???

Uh, Safari is an application, made by Apple Inc.

Suggestions here -> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

DonnaLN wrote:

Over 9k people have viewed this topic.

No, the topic has been viewed 9,000 times. It could be the same 9 obsessed people 1000 times each.

Meg St._Clair wrote:

DonnaLN wrote:

Over 9k people have viewed this topic.

No, the topic has been viewed 9,000 times. It could be the same 9 obsessed people 1000 times each.

Also, viewing does not imply agreement.

I just read that in Safari you have to have Accept Cookies say From Visited for some sites to allow you onto their non-mobile version. It has been much easier for me with this option to surf the web on my phone and ipad.

That option makes no difference. I have always had that set, and it doesn't avoid the incredibly annoying redirect of Safari on the iPad to mobile sites at times. iPhone, yes, but the iPad is capable of a full web browsing experience and should not be redirected to mobile versions.

I still say that until web sites stop what they do, there should be an option in Safari to allow the site to be fooled like with the options available in iCab or Atomic or desktop Safari versions.

Can sites distinguish between iPhone and iPad versions of Safari?

Yes; the user agent strings differ, e.g.:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/7B405

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/7B405

Note the "Mobile" portion of the string Safari (correctly) self-reports.

Thanks William.

Can you just explain to me - in very simple terms! - how web developers go about forcing iOS devices to go to a mobile version of their site? Presumably it's a positive action they have to make as I have developed various web sites without even knowing about this issue.

If they can differentiate between the iPhone and iPad then why don't they allow full access with iPad and just restrict the iPhone to the mobile version? Is it laziness? Ignorance? or something else?

I don't see how Apple has to hack it, it's modifying a few lines of code to update Safari to allow a user defined agent like other browsers do.

I switched from Android to iOS devices about 6 months ago and had always been a user of Dolphin and Skyfire (Which do allow User Defined Agent settings) during my Android years so Safari was a bit alien to me at 1st anyway. When I got my iPad the fact you can't default to desktop agent id was the reason Safari is now hiding on page 9 of my apps and gets used on the very rare occasion something doesn't render in either of the above browsers. Yeah it was £3 for Skyfire but it's well worth it for the Flash compatibility alone if you ask me.

I don't see how you can avoid using Safari so easily as it is totally integrated into iOS. Any link clicked on in an email or anywhere else will bring up Safari as it's not possible to change the default browser.

I don't see how you can avoid using Safari so easily as it is totally integrated into iOS. Any link clicked on in an email or anywhere else will bring up Safari as it's not possible to change the default browser.

I rarely use Safari as I rarely click on links from email. The few times I do, Safari works OK. 95% of browsing on my iPad2 and/or iPhone 4S is with iCabMoble.

I use iCab as well, but avoiding Safari is impossible because as I said, clicking on any link anywhere outside of iCab causes Safari to launch.

Agreed. My point was, for me, it's easy to avoid using Safari as I rarely click on external links... if you really don't want to use Safari, it can be done.

Sorry, Paul, I disagree, it can't be done unless you don't ever have to access links on Twitter, Facebook, App Store, email or any other app. Every app uses Safari to view links. If you don't ever use these apps, then I wonder what you are doing with your iPad apart from browsing!

I do a lot on mine... we just use our iPads differently.

Fair enough.