What is the iPad user agent?

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+27 Q:

What is the iPad user agent?

Now that the iPad craze is officially open, it's time to think websites also for the iPad. From what I gather, the iPad is using iPhone OS, but with a different screen resolution from the iPhone/iPod touch. So suddenly, the assumption that iPhone OS = iPhone screen resolution becomes false. Sounds like many sites may have to revise their user-agent -> css mapping.

So, can anyone with access to the iPad or the iPad SDK give us the user-agent string?

Thanks in advance.

+12 A:

From the simulator, in iPad mode:

~~Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_8; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.3 Safari/531.9~~ _{(this is for 3.2 beta 1)}

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10 _{(this is for 3.2 beta 3)}

and in iPhone mode:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.20 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/7B298g

~~I don't know how reliable the simulator is, but it seems you can't detect whether the device is iPad just from the user-agent string.~~

(Note: I'm on Snow Leopard which the User Agent string for Safari is

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_2; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.8 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Safari/531.21.10

)

KennyTM 2010-01-28 11:55:14

"Machintosh"? Is that a typo or is it for real?If its for real, that might be how we're supposed to detect it.

Yoric 2010-01-28 12:22:25

Looks like the difference is suttle... note the spelling of "Machintosh" not "Macintosh" - or is this a typo?

Saul Dolgin 2010-01-28 12:23:03

Sorry it's typo. Because I can't directly copy from the simulator to the Mac.

KennyTM 2010-01-28 12:24:47

10.5.8?? Thats the last Leopard version, but the iPad has a tweaked iPhone OS!! is your iPhone signature from the iPhone simulator or from the device?

medopal 2010-01-31 06:17:00

@medopal: Both are from simulator. There isn't 3.2 for the device yet.

KennyTM 2010-01-31 06:48:51

thats really weird!, why would the iPad report the request is coming from a desktop Safari while the iPhone reports from Mobile Safari? I think the signautre will change soon. The iPad signature is reporting from Intel CPU (wrong), Leopard OS (wrong) and Safari (wrong)

medopal 2010-01-31 12:58:50

+26 A:

Mozilla/5.0(iPad; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B314 Safari/531.21.10

njy 2010-02-11 22:56:05

Thanks, that looks good.

Yoric 2010-02-12 07:26:48

http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/technotes/tn2010/tn2262.html

jleedev 2010-04-03 12:44:42

The accepted answer above isn't it anymore. You can't check the user agent for 'iPhone', has to be 'iPad'. I think jleedev's link above is closer to the real deal:Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10

Jon Raasch 2010-07-08 19:17:00

From Simulator 3.2 final:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10

Christoph S. 2010-05-23 12:01:04

+5 A:

From a real device:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10

Mo 2010-05-29 19:09:26

+2 A:

It's worth noting that when running in web-app mode (using the apple-mobile-web-app-capable meta tag) the user agent changes from:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B405 Safari/531.21.10

to:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/7B405

danjwilson 2010-07-25 20:47:10

it seems to be general consensus that every mobile apple device, iphone, ipad, or ipod uses a user agent that contains both 'Mobile' and 'Safari'.

however, using the latest SDK (4.0.1) and reading the user agent on my rails server (using request.env["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]), we never get the 'Safari' part. no matter whether the request is being made from the simulator or a real device, debug or release. it always looks something like this:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/7D11"

just no 'Safari' :-( so we have to use the 'iPhone' part to be sure. and that is something apple does not recommend doing.

has anybody else this problem? any suggestions?

Philipp Bolliger 2010-07-29 12:30:10

ansaurus

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What is the iPad user agent?

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