Question

Is there a jQuery plugin that stays updated with new mobile user agents that I can use for mobile device detection?

I’m working on a parallax scroller that I would like to disable on slower devices. I’m using feature detection on the HTML5 canvas for some of the effects, but the iPad for instance has the canvas, but runs too slow for the scrolling to look nice (the display callback is on touchesEnded rather than touchesMoved.)

I can detect the iPad specifically using (navigator.platform.indexOf("iPad") != -1) and possibly make a list of a ton of platforms, but I’d like to query something like isMobile().

Edit: I might just go with:

if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPhone') != -1 || navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPad') != -1 || navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Blackberry') != -1 || navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Android') != -1) {
    enableScroll = false;
}

Answer 1

Following are a few resources that explain how feature detection works in jQuery:

http://peter.michaux.ca/articles/feature-detection-state-of-the-art-browser-scripting

http://www.jibbering.com/faq/faq_notes/not_browser_detect.html

http://yura.thinkweb2.com/cft/