Most popular/used Mac version

P

paulie0772

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We are developing a web app and need to ensure we do a good job of supporting Mac users.

Does anyone have any ideas or stats on what the most widely used version of Mac is right now so we can be sure to test against it and it's "normal" browser versions?

Does anyone have any ideas if Safari for the PC and Safari on the Mac vary widely?

Any advice on what versions of OS and browsers to get the best support coverage would be helpful.

Thanks!

Paulie
 
IMHO, you are going at this all wrong. There is no need to maintain 15 different versions of your code to accommodate 15 different browser/OS combinations. Too many developers believe that their websites are cyberspace monuments to their own brilliance. Code to W3C standards and trailing edge technology. The latest browsers will handle your site with aplomb. So too will most computers sold this millennium.
 
Agreed -- focus more on standards compliance than with cross-browser compatibility initially.

There will always be IE quirks, but for the most part, if your code is standards compliant (you can check HTML, XHTML, CSS and more on w3c.org), then it will work on all major browsers (Opera, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc.). Then it's just a matter of getting IE in line -- even standards compliant code will sometimes mess up in IE.

You also need to draw the line somewhere in terms of IE. IE 6 doesn't support PNG files with transparency -- although there's a CSS and a JavaScript hack for that. Is IE 6 the minimum you want to code for? IE 7? IE 8?

If your site is publicly-accessible, then you may be interested in a site such as BrowserShots:

http://browsershots.org/

Simply paste the URL of your website into their app, and wait for them to preview your website in just about every web browser possible. It sure beats having to have one of every machine laying around for compatibility testing.
 
We're aren't coding sep versions for any /all browser versions -- we just have some users that will be Mac based and we wanted to make sure the web app works/performs and LOOKS correct. I have folks here who complain about stuff being mm out of line.... (No different than checking it over in FF and IE on your own machine -- we just want to procure a Mac to do similar and I wanted to get one that is representative of the widest Mac user base).

Thanks much for the link of the site that checks over our site with diff. browser versions -- I'll definitely give that a try...

Much appreciated for the feedback.
 
paulie0772 said:
We're aren't coding sep versions for any /all browser versions -- we just have some users that will be Mac based and we wanted to make sure the web app works/performs and LOOKS correct. I have folks here who complain about stuff being mm out of line....
Click to expand...
I was a little over-the-top in my previous post, but the same basic principle applies. With web-based apps, you have to be particularly modest in your goals. My experience with most web-based apps, particularly those that migrate from standalone apps, is that they blow and blow hard. As I said before, use trailing edge standard technology and you should be fine.
 
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