If you have any additional information, please leave it in the comments below, and I’ll update the post.

More information about Android screen sizes was gathered this last month, and is analyzed below.

Android phones
320 px width – 85% of devices queried – phone
360 px width – 4.5% of devices queried – phone
400 px width – 5% of devices queried – 5.3″ screen size
600 px width – 1% of devices queried – tablets
800 px width – 4.5% of devices queried – tablets

The screen sizes are becoming more varied with new devices with new screen sizes and resolutions becoming available, making it ever more challenging for the Android developer.

How is this information useful to you in developing apps?

HTML5 / CSS3 development for mobile browsers needs to be aware of the reported screen size to effectively build a mobile site.

However, the screen resolution listed in the device specifications is NOT the same as what is reported by the mobile browser itself. Specifically, what is the window size information available via JavaScript using window.innerWidth and window.innerHeight. It is usually very different than the device’s screen resolution.

The iPhone and iPad are consistent and predictable. All iPhones report a window size of 320 x 460, and all iPads report a window size of 768 x 1004.

The ‘fun’ part is supporting the wide variety of window sizes on Android devices. However, it is exceptionally hard to find data on the window size different devices report via JavaScript.

A month ago I released a mobile app for Android and iOS called ScoreKeepr. During the update check to my server, the app reports the device’s windows size.

Here are the most common reported screen sizes for Android devices (in Portrait orientation):

Android phones
320 px width – 90% of devices queried
360 px width – 10% of devices queried

Android tablets
800 px width – 1 device reporting (insufficient data)

Using this information, you can more easily develop your CSS media queries, knowing what sizes your app is likely to encounter in the wild.

This will be an ongoing monthly report, and will reflect different reported window sizes when new devices are introduced. By regularly reporting this information, a trend over time can be identified.

What information are you collecting from your apps? Please share your suggestions for additional anonymous information to collect. Information must be available via JavaScript query.

UPDATE FEB 1st: final numbers for January 2012 included

Many internet companies have stated their opposition to SOPA/PIPA, such as Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia. An excellent analysis is here on Reddit.

To be clear, this is NOT objecting to copyright law, and NOT in support of copyright infringers.

On January 18th, many websites around the world are blacking out to protest this poorly thought out and technology ignorant legislation, before it is voted on by the US Congress and Senate.

JimBergman.net will take part in the blackout movement from 12am PST to 11pm PST on January 18th.

Thanks to Toby for making the WordPress SOPA Blackout plugin, available for download here.

The challenge is Just Blog Something!

So, take an hour a week and just blog something. Write about something interesting or humorous or maddening that happened. Write about something you care about. Writing is a like a muscle in that is develops only when used. You’ll write better the more you write. And with over 20 unpublished posts, I’m almost half done for the year (providing there’s something good there).

So just write. And let the chips fall where they may.

The Android 2.3 SDK information does not mention a browser upgrade or support for websockets specifically. So there is no official word from Google regarding websockets being included when Android 2.3 is released.

Taking a look at the beta 1 release of the Android 2.3 SDK, the browser in the emulator is the same version as in Android 2.2 FroYo. Here are screencaps from the browser in the Android 2.3 emulator and a screencap from the browser in Android 2.2. Note the browser version is the same in each screencap.

   

Considering that the browser in Android is based on the same open-source WebKit browser used in the iPhone and iPad, and Apple recently released websocket support in iOS 4.2, it is reasonable to predict that Google will include websocket support in the Android browser very soon, and hopefully in Android 2.3.

I posted this question to Quora. We’ll see if someone with more info can add to this.

Android 2.3 ‘Gingerbread’ WebSocket support by Jim Bergman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://jimbergman.net/about.

This was confirmed in a visit to a local Apple store. Here are some screencaps grabbed of the iPhone 4:

   

iOS 4.2 is also available for the iPad, which is a huge improvement. iOS 4.0 was only for the iPhone, and the iPad was still using iOS 3. Here are the iPad screencaps to confirm websocket support on the iPad:

   

Apple had websocket support in the beta of iOS 4.0, but removed it before release. Whatever reason it was not included iOS 4.0 must have been resolved in iOS 4.2.

WebSockets supported in iOS 4.2 by Jim Bergman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://jimbergman.net/about.

While Rock-Paper-Scissors (also called Ro-Sham-Bo) works with two people at a time, Fing-Fong-Fooey is more easily used with a group of people.

It works like this:

Everyone stands together in a circle, and each person makes a fist.

All together in unison, count to three while saying ‘Fing-Fong-Fooey’, and move your fist up and down with the count.

When Fooey is reached, each person holds out one, two or three fingers.

Add up the total number of fingers shown for all players.

Starting from the person that called for Fing-Fong-Fooey, count counter-clockwise starting with the person to their right.

The last person counted is ‘it’.

Example:

John, Lee and Mary are deciding who will drive everyone to the beach. Mary calls for Fing-Fong-Fooey. John is to Mary’s right and Lee is to her left. Each makes a fist and counts together Fing-Fong-Fooey. On Fooey, John puts out 2 fingers, Lee puts out 3 and Mary puts out 2. The total number of fingers is 7. Mary’s counts to 7 starting to her right. John-Lee-Mary-John-Lee-Mary-John. John was the last person counted and is ‘it’. He is the driver for today’s trip.

A variation that works better for larger groups, is to hold out up to as many fingers as there are people in the group. If there are five people, each person can hold out 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 fingers. Otherwise there is an advantage to be one of the last counted in the circle.

This game was used in the TV show House M.D. in the first episode of season 7. Dr. Taub calls for Fing-Fong-Fooey with Dr. Chase and Dr. Foreman. Dr. Taub holds out two fingers, Dr. Foreman holds out two fingers, and Dr. Chase holds out one finger. The total number of fingers is five. Starting with Dr. Foreman who is to the right of Dr. Taub, the count goes Foreman-Chase-Taub-Foreman-Chase. Dr. Chase is ‘it’.

The game is alternately called Fing-Fong-Phooey, although the preferred spelling is Fing-Fong-Fooey.

Fing Fing Fooey by Jim Bergman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://jimbergman.net/about.

UPDATE July 2010: since the beta 2 release of iOS4, Apple has disabled websockets support. A few readers pointed this out, so I made a trip to an Apple Store it run a few tests.

Confirmed: iOS4 as it is released reports it does NOT have websocket support.

ORIGINAL POST:

Since the Safari web browser on the iPhone is based on WebKit, it makes sense that at some point support for WebSockets would make it to the iPhone.

Safari on iPhone OS 4.0 beta 2 supports WebSocket.

Once OS 4 is available for the iPad, support should be there as well.

Thanks to reader Arun for pointing this out.

WebSockets NOT supported in iOS 4.0 by Jim Bergman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://jimbergman.net/about.

Here is a quick test to see if your web browser supports WebSockets. At the time this post was published Google Chrome developer channel release 4.0.249.0 is the only browser to support WebSockets.

Here is the JavaScript code (or right click and save file as WebSocketTest.js):

function WebSocketTest()
{
  if ("WebSocket" in window)
  {
    // Google example code
    //  var ws = new WebSocket("ws://example.com/service");
    //  ws.onopen = function()
    //  {
    //    // WebSocket is connected. You can send data by send() method
    //    ws.send("message to send"); ....
    //  };
    //  ws.onmessage = function (evt) { var received_msg = evt.data; ... };
    //  ws.onclose = function() { // websocket is closed. };
    alert("WebSockets supported here!\r\n\r\nBrowser: " + navigator.userAgent + "\r\n\r\ntest by jimbergman.net (based on Google sample code)");
  }
  else
  {
    // the browser doesn\'t support WebSockets
    alert("WebSockets NOT supported here!\r\n\r\nBrowser: " + navigator.userAgent + "\r\n\r\ntest by jimbergman.net (based on Google sample code)");
  }
}

Sample HTML code (save file as WebSocketTest.html in same folder as .js file above):

<html>
<head>
<title>JimBergman.net - JavaScript: WebSocketTest</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="WebSocketTest.js"></script>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<a href="javascript:WebSocketTest()">Run WebSocket test</a>
</body>
</html>