This is a list of open/unanswered technical questions about the iPhone as asked on the iPhoneWebDev email discussion list. Any fully answered questions will be moved to the Closed Questions section at the end, and eventually moved to iPhone Developer FAQ if applicable.

 

This is a temporary location for the Open Questions. The final version will be posted more permanently at iPhoneWebDev Open Questions page.

 

Please use the format •Q: plaintext question, (italic speculation), A: bold final answer .

 

Open Questions

 

• Q: Does the web browser on Wifi know that it has been interrupted by a phone call on Edge? On Edge-only does it know? A: ?

 

• Q: Are any events sent to the page and javascript active when the page zoomed-out? A: ?

 

• Q: Where are bookmarks sync'ed to on the PC?

 

• Q: Can the web browser know who is calling? (CA: Probably not, but we don't know for sure.) A: ?

 

• Q: What is the actual pixel size of the iPhone screen available to web designer? (CA: There is some discussion on this topic in this thread.) A: ?

 

• Q: The url protocol for placing phonecalls seems to be "tel:". What non-numerals, e.g. "tel:1-573-555-0981", "tel:1-510-573-555-0981x1", letters like "tel:1-800-CALL-XYZ", or special functions like wait or pause are supported? (Letters definitely work, they're just mapped to numbers on the keypad. Q is mapped to 7, Z is mapped to 9. Haven't tried pause/wait yet.) A: ?

 

• Q: How do we get the URL input panel? (CA: we've tried url, http, website, webpage, homepage, email, emailaddress, web, address, page, site, sitename) A: ?

 

• Q: What is the official term-of-art for the expanded/zoomed-out mode, vs. a real size zoomed-in mode? A: ?

 

• Q: The demos showed switching between number of pages previously loaded. Are these pages in the background running, or halted in some form of cache? A: They are in the background running. You can actually see each of them loading in thumbnail view, too. ... This differs. For example, when the iPhone has been turned off, pages are "blank" until the user opens them up again. The list of pages is actually full of white pages, but URLs are preserved.

 

• Q: What limits on local storage are there? Are cookies unusually limited? Is google gears or some other persistent storage supported? A: ?

 

• Q: What email services are offering imap push? A: ?

 

• Q: What settings can the user set? Can we see all the settings menus? A: http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/settings.html -- not ALL settings are there, but most that aren't self explanatory are.

 

• Q: Does double-tap from zoomed-out mode to zoomed-in mode send an event to a javascript handler? A: I don't believe so, but the width, height, and scroll will change.

 

• Q: There is some type of "tap and hold" functionality that gives an info bubble -- how is this different then existing tooltips? A: ?

 

• Q: If onmouseover is not supported, can we instead do things like javascript-based menus with hover? Any issues or differences with hover on the iPhone? A: Hover isn't available; but mouseDown happens, just not when you want it -- only just before mouseUp.

 

• Q: Windows Mobile has a standard for right-click... you hold one spot for a second, and a little ring of dots builds until a context menu appears. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent on the iPhone. Or are we missing something? A: No. Not implemented.

 

• Q: Is there any way to detect, or emulate, the pinch-zoom function in javascript? A: See above about changes between zoomed-in and zoomed-out modes.

 

• Q: Is there anything special we need to do to support flick-scrolling ui in iPhone webapps? A: No. Pages scroll this way by default. This also partially explains the difficulties in implementing drag & drop, or even mouseDown.

 

• Q: Is it possible to determine the users location from a web page? A: Instruct the user to click on a map. For a more precise location, you can generally assume the user to be in the restroom, hiding from coworkers.

 

• Q: Can we determine the presence of a bluetooth device from a web page? A: ?

 

• Q: Is there support of DOM mutation events in the iPhone? (CA: We have tested this with SynchroEdit using the current build of WebKit, and it does seem to work. Unknown if it is supported on iPhone yet.) A: ?

 

• Q: Does the iPhone browser support continuous connections, i.e. the ability to keep the browser at readystate==3 and not "finish" sending the page for more interactive pages? (CA: This approach appears to be a Firefox-only feature, and does not seem to work in SynchroEdit in the latest WebKit. Using javascript setInterval() on a function with a frequency of 3 times/sec, polling the actual XMLHttpRequest object's input buffer for new data, does seem to work on both Firefox and WebKit, but has issues of latency and performance as compared to the readystate==3 approach. But it may be good enough.) A: ?

 

• Q: What media types will the iPhone broswer support. Will it have custom a custom media type? ( If I was going to design the device I would make it honor the handheld media type.) A:

 

• Q: What does the iPhone browser do when the user opens:
  • .lnk files? A: ?
  • a OS X Desktop-based Safari .web archive? A: ?

 

• Q: What does the iPhone mail client do when the user opens:
  • .ics files? A: ?
  • .vcf (vCard) files? A: ?
  • .m3u files? A: ?
  • .url files? A: ?
  • .lnk files? A: ?
  • a OS X Desktop-based Safari .web archive attached to an email? A: ?

 

• Q: What Safari specific functionality should we be taking advantage of on the iPhone that we normally avoid for cross-platform compatibility? (DC: for instance css "text-shadow: #000000 3px 3px 3px;", css "text-overflow: ellipsis;" (automatically cuts off at visible text and adds ...), PNG Transparency, Object.onselectstart = function () { return false; } to prevent selecting text while dragging.) A: ?

 

• Q: If an iPhone is purchased in the States can it still be used via WiFi anywhere else, i.e. to access a localized website to help in developing iPhone aware content? A: It can be used but it requires some tweaking (it must be activated in a specific way). According to the AT&T training manual (Pg 14), No - the phone must be activated in iTunes before anything will work. Quote: iPhone will remain inactive until it is activated using iTunes. In the inactive state it will not make or receive calls, except for emergency calls. As well, the iPod, Internet, and Wi-Fi capabilities will not be functional until the device is activated.

 

• Q: How best can we take advantage of the native PDF and .doc file capabilities of iSafari? A: ?

 

• Q: What Javascript audio commands and file formats will work on a webpage? A: ?

 

• Q: We hear reports of no mousedown events, only mouseup. Is this the case? A: ?

 

• Q: How fast can we animate via javascript? Are there any guidelines or tricks we can use A: ?

 

• Q: Can we reshow the URL bar under javascript control after it has been hidden? A: ?

 

Closed Questions

 

Developer Info

 

• Q: When will the information presented at WWDC in the session "Designing Web Content for iPhone" be released publicly out from confidentiality so that we can start sharing/talking about it?

 

• A: Most of the information from the WWDC presentation is now available at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html -- only minor details differ, and it is presumed that the web page is more accurate.

 

General Info

 

• Q: Where are bookmarks sync'ed to?

 

• A: On the Macintosh they are sync'ed to Safari, and though .Mac to other macintoshes. We don't know where they are sync'ed to on the PC.

 

• Q: Can we browse the web while talking on the phone?

 

• A: Yes and no. You can browse the web if you have both a Wifi Connection and an Edge connection. If you don't have Wifi, your Edge connection will be disconnected while you are on the phone.

 

 

Display/Chrome

 

• Q: Can we turn off any of the iPhone UI elements (the "chrome")?

 

• A: The top chrome disappears off the top of the screen when the page scrolls. The bottom chrome is fixed in place.

  A web page may automatically scroll the top chrome off when it loads by executing a delayed window.scrollTo(0,1) event. There is a slight delay between the page scrolling and the chrome receding in this case.

  (Example: http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/hideurl.html )

 

• Q: Can we add icons to the bottom chrome to make it easier to add always-visible navigation with no javascript?

 

• A: Yes.

  (Example: http://www.launchpadhq.com/experiments/toolbar-icons.html )

 

• Q: When creating iPhone webapps that emulate the internal apps UI, what is the recommended technique for pinning toolbars to the bottom of the display?

 

• A: (See: http://www.launchpadhq.com/experiments/toolbar-simple.html )

 

Email

 

• Q: Can we have multiple email accounts?

 

• A: Yes. You can add multiple accounts to Mail.app and the iPhone will allow access to them all. This has been tested with up to 3 accounts to date.

 

Events

 

• Q: Will the page receive resize events when the page is re-oriented, allowing us to change CSS?

 

• A: There is a bug in window.onresize. However, at this point, polling for window.innerWidth seems to be the answer.

  (Examples: http://www.joehewitt.com/files/liquid1.html , http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/liquified/liquified.html , http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/liquified/gradient_liquified.html)

 

• Q: Are any events sent to the page and javascript when the page is in the background?

 

• A: No. Tested window.onfocus/onblur and document.onfocus/onblur but none of them triggered when switching back/forth between the page and another page in Safari on the iPhone.

 

 

File Types

 

• Q: What does the iPhone browser do when the user opens:
  • .ics files? A: "Safari can't download this file."
  • .vcf (vCard) files? A: "Safari can't download this file."
  • .m3u files? A: "Safari can't download this file."
  • .url files? A: Opens as text.
  • .txt files? A: Opens as text.
  • .mp3 files? A: Opens w/ Quicktime within browser
  • .pdf files? A: Opens in browser.
  • .xls files? A: Opens in browser.
  • .doc files? A: Opens in browser.
  • .css files? A: Opens as text.
  • .wav files? A: Opens w/ Quicktime (but Quicktime seems unable to play .wav)
  • .avi files? A: "Safari can't download this file."
  • .wma files? A: "Safari can't download this file."
  • .ppt files? A: "Safari can't download this file."
  • .mov files? A: TBD

 

File Type test page here:

http://ipheed.com/post/44/iPhone-Browser-Filetype-Test

 

Javascript

 

• Q: Can we have javascript in bookmarks to create bookmarklets? If javascript in bookmark is executed, will it have sufficient context that things like bookmarklets can retrieve information about the current page, or that modify DOM/DHMTL, will function?

 

• A: Yes, Bookmarklets with javascript are confirmed to be working.

 

Keyboards

 

• Q: What "keyboard" input panels are available? Demos show a phone dialer, qwerty (alphabetic a-z), and number/punctuation (1234567890-/:;()&@'.,?!). What about symbols and international characters?

 

• A: On the US phones there are 4 known keypads: "regular text", "urls", "phone numbers", and "zip codes". They seem to have little support for internationalization. The Europe and Asia releases will doubtless be different.

 

• Q: Can we give hints in our forms as to what keyboard input panel to default to?

 

• A: Yes. The default is the regular text keyboard. If your input box has the name "phone" in it, the iPhone will instead default to the phone numbers keyboard, while if your input box has the name "zip" in it, the iPhone will instead default to the zip codes keyboard.

  Note that if you direct a user to the phone numbers keyboard they cannot change to any other keyboard.

  (Examples: http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/input.html

 

Network

 

• Q: While you are speaking on the cell phone, can you use the internet?

 

• A: You cannot use the EDGE network while you are talking on the cell phone. If you have access to a Wi-Fi network, that is still available while you are making a call.

  If you send an email while making a call and have no access to a Wi-Fi network, it will queue up and send after the call is complete.

  (Source: Think Secret)

 

Programming

 

• Q: How do we debug web pages on the iPhone? Is there a javascript console?

 

• A: Apple doesn't supply any console, but you can download firebug for the iPhone by Joe Hewitt.

 

URLs

 

• Q: Does the iPhone support RFC 2368 extended mailto: schemes like <mailto:listserv@example.com?subject=unsubscribe> function properly?

 

• A: Yes it does. We've tested subject and body.

  (Example: http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/mailto.html

 

• Q: Does the iPhone support the the file:// protocol (or something like it) to access internal files such as MP3, video, and photos? Is it possible to upload a photo taken on the iPhone to a web page?

 

• A:** Inputting "file://" in the browser returns "Safari can't open the page because it is a local file.". So file:// is supported, but whether it is useable or not is another question.