Blocking mobile devices other than iPhone, iPod and iPAD and desktop - user-agent

Hi we have a requirement where in we have to show mobile site if it is iPhone, iPOD or iPAD. Any devices other than these should get Device not supported message.
If it is desktop then redirect to desktop site.
Question: How can I identify that the device is not iPOD (iPAD, iPhone) and also this is not a desktop as it sounds difficult to get exhaustive list of universal mobile devices from user agent.

You could simply look at the aspect ratio which is pretty unique to I devices with regard to mobile. Also surely if you can tell if it is an I device then all other devices are not supported? Therefore you do not need to identify anything other than I devices. Then direct all other devices to the desktop site. (As long as the desktop site is designed properly it should work well enough on Android and Windows Phone devices). In fact I generally always point my android tablet and phone at the dektop version of the sites anyway as they normally have better functionality.

Related

Beacons integration without application on device

Can i know is it possible to communicate with Beacon without having any Mobile app on device?
Thanks in advance
Both Android and iOS devices need some kind of app installed to interact with your beacons. Some phones have such apps pre-installed, but the options are limited. The two such apps with the widest distribution are:
Google Chrome App (Android/iOS)
Google's Chrome app will interact with beacons supporting Eddystone-URL (also known as physical web), which transmit a URL that can be displayed within Chrome when the app detects it.
This works on both Android and iOS devices with Chrome installed. For newer Android phones, this is a relatively high percentage of devices. For iOS, it is a very small percentage, as the app is not installed by default. This makes it of very limited use on iOS.
The other real drawback to relying on Chrome for beacon detection is the hoops users have to jump through to opt-in, and the way the beacon notifications are buried. Until users opt-in, they will see no notifications on beacon detections. Once they do, they will see a very generic notification "Physical web beacons are nearby", and only once the user taps on that are the specifics about the web page associated with the beacon transmitted URL displayed.
Passbook (iOS)
Apple's passbook app will bring up a passbook entry (usually used for tickets, coupons, etc.) associated with a set of iBeacon identifiers if the user comes within range of the beacon. In order to use this, however, the user must first download the passbook entry to his or her iPhone. Only once this is downloaded and opened will the app respond to associated beacons.
EDIT April 2020: For a time prior to December 2018 Google supported app-less notifications based on beacon detection using their Google Nearby product. This was discontinued in December 2018 due to predictable abuse and spam that it generated. While you may find some outdated documentation online about this ability, understand that this feature no longer works. As of this writing, my understanding is that this answer is still correct.
You should checkout Eddystones from Google. They can push you URLs even without app.
If you want to interact with beacons and do custom stuff (notifications, http requests, etc) you will need an app.

How can I make the Google Eddystone url notification to make a sound when detected

I am using eddystone beacons to transmit my business url. How can I make the url notification received to alert thru sound on the users device? Any idea?
Understand that Eddystone-URL beacon advertisements don't automatically do anything on a user's phone unless they have an app installed to detect them.
Chrome for iOS and Android (installed on many newer Android devices, but very few iOS devices) will automatically detect Eddystone-URL advertisements and display a notification from Chrome if the user has opted-in. However, no sound is played. Bottom line: on a phone without a custom app, detecting an Eddystone-URL will not cause a sound to play.
If you build a custom app and get it installed on users' devices, you can certainly make it play a sound on Android devices when the beacon is detected. On iOS devices, you could also display a local notification on the device that will play a sound, but only if the user has the volume turned up on the device, does not have do not disturb on, and has opted-in to receiving notifications from the app.

How to "disable" HD screens for Windows Phone app Store?

When I started working on our company's Windows Phone app project there was no full HD resolution for WP. But now there is and I'm supposed to disable the app for full HD devices in the WP Store. How do I exactly do that?
The main reason for this is that the app has a thick black ribbon on top of the screen when used with a full HD device.
I have noticed that when you update or upload .xap file, the Store recognizes the requirements of the app. The Store says the app works on all screens. How do I set the requirements so that the app is disabled HD resolution screens?
The app is made to support WP versions 7.1 through 8. I eyed the Internet for help but it seems that because the app is WP 7 compatible I can't describe the resolutions in the WMAppManifest where the Store would easily to find it. Or can I?
It would be so great if I could do this some easy way instead of going through the whole app to make it work "better" on HD screens.
There is no way how you can prevent users with certain display resolutions from installing your app. A similar question was asked here, it was about installation prevention of apps for specific device types. What you can do is to do the check in code.
You could check the device's display resolution when starting the application. If the size exceeds your limit, you could inform the user about that and exit the application.
How can I get a screen resolution of Device (Windows Phone)
However, I don't know how this would affect the app certification.
Windows Phone 7.1 only supports 800 x 480 resolution and Windows Phone 8 supports multiple resolution.
The scaling used for Windows Phone 7x apps on Windows Phone 8 means that one 720p and 1080p devices, you will get a black band. There is nothing you can do.
You could recompile the app as Windows Phone 8 app and have both WP7x and WP8 xaps available and this will ensure that the space is consumed correctly and the black band isn't shown.

WP7:LivesmoothStreaming is not working with device

We're building a LIVE Smooth Streaming WP7 App.It works perfectly on the emulator, but not on device (shows up blank).
We are also trying smf player for streaming on WP7 but every time we are getting a blank screen on player. Its only work on Emulator.
Though there is no error being thrown.
How i can apply live streaming on my windows phone not on emulator.
looking for your responce
Does your streaming source contain multi-resolution tracks?
This kind of problem may appear when testing on a WP8 Emulator and then deploying the app to a WP7 device. Specially if the WP7 device is a first-generation device, like HTC HD7.
Basically this happens because the WP8 emulator and Wp8 devices do support multi-resolution, but old devices do not support multi-resolution tracks. You can read more here: http://blog.supaywasi.com/2013/01/smooth-streaming-multi-resolution-support-for-windows-phone/
So, basically you have to handle the ManifestReady event on your WP7 app and RestrictTracks to only tracks of the same resolution.
For WP8 devices you will not need to this.

Blackberry and Windows phone 7 publishing of trivial app

We have a mobile version of our web site which works well on all mobile screen resolutions and sizes. Now, we would like to build a very simple app for Blackberry and Windows Phone 7. The app would be trivial - after you click on its icon, it opens a web browser and send you to our mobile web site. Just like a Windows OS shortcut that you place on your desktop.
Can you tell me if Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 policies allow such app be published? For example, Apple rejected us.
I can't speak for Blackberry, but Requirement 2.10 from the WP7 Application Certification Requirements:
Your application must have distinct,
substantial and legitimate content and
purpose other than merely launching a webpage.
So the answer seems to be no on the WP7 marketplace. Is there a reason you want to create an app like that anyway? On WP7, users can pin a tile to their home screen that will launch the website they've pinned. You could simply encourage users to do that on their WP7 and you'll get the same effect (except your site won't appear in the app list).
Seems this is okay for BlackBerry. See section 4.b of the App World FAQ.
Very strange. Our company has placed a similar application on Android Market and the Appstore and they have been resolved and now they available at stores. Also, I had a similar application for Windovs Phone, and it was also allowed.
P.S. Our application is not just a browser window, it has custom control panel in bottom. Also it has the communication protocol with the site - such a sending pictures from camera and phone and access to phone contacts.

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