Re: ACTION-994: Some evidence of CSS MQ in the wild

>> I think 3 million, but will get the figures next week.
--
> I'm not sure about the main use, but I was using Media
> Queries long before the iPhone even existed,

That would make about 0.5% rate of utilization -- I gather 
in the general Web where MAMA collects its data. This is
not exactly impressive if MQ have been available long
before the emergence of the iPhone, but perhaps this 
just means that MQ are not very useful for desktops.

> I don't see how we can tell that a media query is 
> designed to offer custom style sheets to iPhones rather
> than any other phone or mobile device.

This is not exactly what I meant, rather I observed that
many examples of CSS media queries seemed 
primarily intended for the iPhone _at this point in time_
(probably because of the popularity of the iPhone).

> it certainly doesn't require the viewport meta tag to be
> useful.

Correct. 

Remember that the discussion started when someone
suggested mentioning CSS MQ in "3.6.2 Use Client-side 
Capability Detection for Dynamic Device State"

What I was hinting at was that for truly dynamic
capability handling, CSS MQ are probably insufficient by 
themselves and require other features (such as JavaScript,
Viewport, etc). The only example given that actually deals
with dynamic capability handling (screen orientation) must
also rely upon viewport. Just an observation, not the final 
word.

> I forgot about the issue of mobile phone makers
> ramping up the pixel density

For quite some time now, far-eastern manufacturers 
(Korea and Japan) have been shipping phones with
subsantially higher pixel counts than the iPhone or
anything available in European/USA markets. 480x854 
seems to have become typical for DoCoMo and Softbank.

> Using actual screen width in cm/mm/inches would 
> probably be better

I am not thrilled by this approach...

>> (On a side-note, I  disagree that Best Practices must 
>> be derived from widely-used techniques.
....
> Personally, I promote a way of creating mobile apps 
> and services based on exploiting what works

Yes, and this is why I argue that a best practice must be
based on techniques that
a) are sufficiently widely available;
b) demonstrably "work", i.e. sufficiently solid experience
about them, and how and when to best apply them is
available;
(b) being more important than (a).

E.Casais

Received on Friday, 10 July 2009 16:41:23 UTC