Guidelines for supporting iPhone

[KLB]

Apple has published a webpage that provides guidelines for supporting iPhone's in webpage development at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html

Here is a summary of key points about what iPhone Safari does not support:

• Flash - Avoid using JavaScript prompts to encourage users to download Flash as iPhones do not support it.
• Java - Sorry, like Flash, iPhones do not support Java (they do support JavaScript).
• File Upload form field - iPhones do not support file uploads via form fields. These form fields are disabled on iPhones.
• OnMouse events - iPhone does not support events like onmouseover. Thus dynamic menus that depend upon these events will not work.
• :hover pseudo class - sorry there is no support for the :hover pseudo class. Because :hover and onmouse are not supported, most drop down menuing systems are not supported by the iPhone. As such if you use these types of menus, make sure there is an alternative means of navigation.
• tooltips - I'm not sure of the logic behind this, but iPhones do not support tooltips (e.g. the "title" attribute).
• plug-ins - sites that require plug-ins will not work on the iPhone.

For better or worse, those are the key things that the iPhone does not support. I suspect that as the popularity of the iPhone increases these will become more important design considerations to keep in mind when developing websites, especially if they are targeted towards mobile users.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

I sm not sure that enough websites are developed with mobile users in mind, but it is going to be a growing market.

Is therre a way of detecting that the browser is on an iphone?

[KLB]

They will have "iPhone" (without quotes) in the UA string. The page I linked to provides all of the details.