Server-side capability detection for mobile devices part 1

Coding with web standards ensures that all web-enabled devices should be able to make use of your web sites, but you can take this further, using server-side capability detection methods to maximize the experience on each device you serve your pages to, in terms of variables like location and language. In this article, Brian Suda explores some of these methods.

This is part 1, covering HTTP headers, mobile-specific headers and browser user agent strings ; part 2, which covers some specific capability detection code techniques, will follow next week.

( Read the article )

Thanks for the cool article about handling mobile devices with Opera Mini/Mobile and minority mobile browsers.

I'm wondering, though, why is there a non-binary "competency" value (q=0.x)...?? Shouldn't the value be binary, meaning either Opera Mini/Mobile will be able to satisfactorily render or display PNG or XML or any mime-content type...or not render? Is this related to possible different mobile devices and their various hardware limitations that Opera will run on...?

Keep up the good work!