The DeviceAtlas 2.0 Preview was released on Monday, and with it, access to our TA-DA test suite was opened up to the unwashed masses.
A total of 5 new test have been added to the list, which is due grow further with the full 2.0 release due in the coming weeks. An interesting result of these new tests, will (hopefully) be a more accurate representation of which devices support the controversial “SMSTO:” URI, “SMS:” URI, or both.
A quick test (using TA-DA of course) using my own Nokia E65 shows that it definitely does not support the SMSTO URI scheme, but does support the SMS one.
There does seem to be some level of confusion regarding these 2 URI schemes, so hopefully DeviceAtlas can help to clear up this particular mess 🙂
In order to store the information for these new tests, we have added the new properties (you can view all of our properties on the DeviceAtlas Properties page) to our list – uriSchemeSms and uriSchemeSmsTo (both or type boolean).
What this means, is that any mobile site that you develop from now on will be able to link a user to a contact telephone number (uriSchemeTel), or directly to a new SMS message (uriSchemeSms or uriSchemeSmsTo). Given enough time, I hope to be able to graph the support of both of these properties over our entire list of devices, which will (again, I hope) show a distinct level of support for one URI scheme over the other. Of course, if time tells us that there’s a roughtly 50/50 split, we (as developers) could be in for a spot of bother/annoyance when it comes to coding these auto-linking system, so here’s hoping for a clear-cut winner!
Before I sign off, I just want to comment on the DeviceAtlas 2.0 Preview that I mentioned at the start of this post. Due to an incredibly high number of requests for the data, we now list the (known) UserAgent Strings associated with any of our devices, on their respective device view pages (for example, view the Nokia E65 page I linked above, or the ever popular Apple iPhone). Of course, as can be clearly seen on the iPhone listing, there can be a huge amount of repetition in lists like these, so we may make some minor layout modifications over the course of time.
So, with that all said, I’ll leave you to enjoy your TADA experience, and say that I look forward to examining the data you all submit!
Daniel
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