Question

I am working on a web service for which we have already developed apps for iPhone and Android. To cover the rest of the web enabled phones, temporarily or otherwise, we are going to use a web app. We would like the app to conform nicely to each device as well as cover as many devices as possible including low end devices.

Can anyone point me to a framework for such an application, if such a thing exists. What I’m looking for is device/user agent detection and perhaps a boilerplate template for a wide range of mobile devices. Either Java or PHP wil do. I’m looking for the best solution between the two.

Thanks

Answer 1

Such a thing doesn’t exist, lots of the subcomponents are available for free but getting that correct mix with the right amount of genius in it to make it work for you as some readymade framework is a pipe dream.

In fact if adapting to mobile isn’t your core business, you should outsource it to some other company of which it is since at this point those companies have been in the field for almost a decade. (This, by the way is the nearly obligatory “I work for such a company, buy our stuff” plug)

But, to elaborate a bit further and actually help you, WURFL is usually mentioned when detection frameworks are mentioned. Unfortunately WURFL is only about 95% accurate and lacks a truly consistent structure.

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For further reading on my thoughts about this, you should read these other semirelated posts I have made over my time here:

• answer to question on building a CMS for mobile context
• How mobile phone adaptation should be done in general terms
• Parsing useful information from the User-Agent header string