Device Detection

Following live trials lasting more than 6 months we're delighted to announce version 3 of the 51Degrees device detection solution is fully released.

Available to all, including free Lite users, key improvements include:

• Over 100 times faster device detection
• Reduced memory consumption and faster start up times
• Automatic image optimisation (PHP, Java and .NET)
• Future proof algorithms supporting potentially millions of device combinations

This week 123 new devices have been added to the device detection database, including Micromax Bolt A59 and Bolt A66.

Smart TVs, glasses, watches and other devices are the future of web content consumption and 51Degrees has added support for website owners to offer optimised experiences for these new technologies. Gesture and voice controls will become the new touch & swipe and users will interact with digital content in a completely different way.

51Degrees.mobi device detection solution, available in C, PHP, .NET and Java platforms, has been recently ported to Python.

This article presents the solution, introduces the different Python packages composing the product and shows the implementation of a couple of simple use cases.

The ability to detect mobile devices is an important part of website and web application design. Over the last year, requests to sites from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones have risen to almost 20% of total web traffic. As well as this, dozens of new devices with varying screen sizes, input methods and capabilities are released onto the market all the time. Keeping up with this diversity is a nessecery but difficult task for any organisation maintaining a presence on the web. A good solution is to use a Device Description Repository to detect mobile devices through the browser header and its User Agent. 51Degrees.mobi's professionally maintained device data makes this process easy to implement and stays current through automatic updates.

51Degrees.mobi has been selected as a finalist in the Mobile Entertainment Awards. Here is why we think we should win!

Understanding what devices are browsing your website and their capabilities is key to optimising your website for mobile. I have put together some small code examples showing how you can gain this sort of knowledge using 51Degrees Device Detection, allowing you to fully optimise your mobile users web experience.

51Degrees Mobile Theme Switcher for Drupal allows you to take existing content and offer it to mobile users with an optimised theme. You can quickly, easily and cost-effectively optimise your Drupal website for mobile performance by following this blog.

Developing websites to accommodate for mobile devices has now become standard practice. However, what happens when developers need to determine between different mobile devices (tablets, smartphones, e-readers, games consoles etc)?

To celebrate our new office move, the 51Degrees team took to the streets of Reading for an evening filled with tasty food and beverages. We stopped off at the handmade burger Co restaurant that was recently opened in Reading at the start of the year. We all had a great experience, with fantastic food and a great environment; however, there was something that left a sour taste in our mouth.