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What the best method of mobile device detection I can build into a mobile site?

I have a website that will be live as of Monday or Tuesday this upcoming week.

Once we go live, I need to start the development of the mobile site. Instead of just doing a standard browser/resolution detection - is there a way to detect the device that's visiting the site...

Not only would it be valuable data for analytics, but I could choose (i realize resolution would also work for this) a css file based on the device ...

I'm still brainstorming - even though the project is only a week out ... any & all comments are appreciated ...

Bottom line - best method (I'm assuming by device detection) to choose the appropriate graphics tailored to the device you're visiting with.

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Gurvinder Pal Singh

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Imaginx

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Man !! That looks great - I'm slightly frustrated I didn't think of using the $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] value myself !! ....

This will def make the project more simple ... I prefer to do as much in php over javascript when the site relies on the availability of the data .. This way, even w/ javascript turned off - I'll still be able to retrieve all the data I want ...

Any advice you could offer ? I've developed many web apps over the years, but this is the first one I'll be doing on mobile devices ...

I'm not the UI developer though - just backend.

Thanks again though Gurvinder

Gurvinder Pal Singh

<<Any advice you could offer ?>>
which devices you are targetting?

Imaginx

ASKER

Wel iOS devices make up the largest percentage of mobile device web traffic, so that's where I plan to start. The site just the front end to a social networking web app (however, the mobile version will offer limited functionality)
Followed by Android devices.
I would like to shy away from anything still using a WAP browser.

Imaginx

ASKER

Also, what would be your concerns with $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] being a user modifiable field ?

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Gurvinder Pal Singh

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Imaginx

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absolutely perfect for my project !! thanks !