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We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

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Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#51

Post by bigiain »

barumrho wrote: post #44
Chris_Newton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rotate an iPad from portrait to landscape, for example, then the default behaviour in Safari is to show the same page layout as you had before, but scale it up to the new width. That's far from ideal if your site uses a responsive design that could adapt quite happily to use the extra width in a landscape orientation.

Can't you disable zooming to solve that problem?

I suggest you ask your 40+ year old users (or any users with less than 20/20 vision) about what they think of you disabling zooming on them…

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#52

Post by nsmartt »

vibrunazo wrote: post #33
dclowd9901 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused why you believe you need hardware for testing? iOS simulator should be plenty sufficient in any standard dev environment...

Buying a mac to run the simulator on is much more expensive than buying an ipad.

And buying multiple versions of the iPad is also more expensive than a mac to run the simulator?

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#53

Post by shaggyfrog »

josephcooney wrote: post #39
shaggyfrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something intrinsic to the WebKit versions on iOS products, or are your problems more general, i.e. learning how to support "limited" devices again (relatively small CPU, GPU, memory)? What is it about the iPad 1 & 2 that is giving you so many more problems compared to the iPad 3? I found I was spending way more time on IE bugs with Web app I recently did (~1000 users/month) than any other browser by far.

What percentage of your users were on IE?

I think around 70-80%; the product the Web app was supporting was targeting schools/non-profits and other demographics where IE usage is high.

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#54

Post by josefonseca »

This widely depends on your geographics.

Writing from Brazil here : still over 70% of the visitors, on average, to most sites I monitor are using some version of IE.

So claiming a "feature" like that down here would be like rejecting 70% customers on a popular mall because they're not wearing red shoes(or some other arbitrary reason).

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#55

Post by shaggyfrog »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #30
mixonic wrote: post #10

Aw man. As a bootstrapping web business guy, I can say I've had way more problems with supporting iPads and iPhones than IE. IE costs me $0 to support, and I don't even bother (nobody asks!). Supporting hip and popular Apple browsers can run me a grand in a fast minute. Pleasing early adopters without working really well on the iPad3 is a tough sell. I think startups fighting to support I'm not crazy about getting an…

I'm confused why you believe you need hardware for testing? iOS simulator should be plenty sufficient in any standard dev environment...

As an almost universal rule of thumb, there is no perfect simulator/emulator substitute for a target hardware platform.

For example, the iOS Simulator runs in an x86 environment. There's no way to throttle it to run at hardware spec speeds, never mind that the Safari in Simulator is quite possibly running different code than the Safari that ships on the devices themselves.

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#56

Post by seanx »

Your blog doesn't support comments. Is that a feature too?

As a developer I sympathise, but as a user I don't. I can understand not supporting IE 6 and 7, but not supporting 8 and 9 is not a feature, it's a lack of feature. It's saying that you aren't prepared to work with me the way I want to work.

It may be the right choice, but don't sell as that it's not.

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#57

Post by jdjb »

josefonseca wrote: post #54

This widely depends on your geographics. Writing from Brazil here : still over 70% of the visitors, on average, to most sites I monitor are using some version of IE. So claiming a "feature" like that down here would be like rejecting 70% customers on a popular mall because they're not wearing red shoes(or some other arbitrary reason).

Except it's not arbitrary. Each browser they support adds development costs and takes time from their devs.

It is more like choosing not to serve vegan options at a dinner. Sure, it might piss people off but they could always suck it up and just eat the bacon.

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#59

Post by josteink »

shaggyfrog wrote: post #28
Chris_Newton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely oddities about how iOS Safari does things. Handling orientation changes and using high-resolution images for the devices with Retina displays are repeat offenders.

Well, adding support for Retina displays is definitely an iOS-specific thing (at least right now). But orientation changes? Is that not a general "mobile issue" for you? Or is (are) the WebKit build(s) in iOS doing something specifically bad compared to (say) Android?

Well, adding support for Retina displays is definitely an iOS-specific thing (at least right now).

Not "right now". As long as you intend to support "retina displays", it will always be an Apple-specific thing.

If you want to support something as general as high-DPI devices, you know, something concrete and not an Apple marketing-term, there are certainly lots of those being made and sold as we speak. They run Android and are not made by Apple.

You might want to consider supporting those as well.

Re: We don't support Internet Explorer, and we're calling that a feature

#60

Post by givan »

brudgers wrote: post #36

> "In reality we've received exactly zero requests for IE support, angry or otherwise." Why would someone bother contacting you when it appears that your site is broken? In other words, the call to action doesn't display technical competence - indeed it implies a level of technical incompetence which probably is not justified. "We're really sorry, but Paydirt isn't playing nice with your browser" doesn't inspire conf…

You must also understand the costs of supporting IE, I think is bigger than the revenue of those 1.6%
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