We are well into 2020 now and its not been an easy ride so far with the global affairs that have taken place over the past month. We hope everyone is healthy and safe and trying to remain positive in these testing times!
Five new properties and a new property value have been added to our datafiles to help solve new and evolving device detection challenges. These are IsScreenFoldable, NumberOfScreens, SecondScreenInchesDiagonal, SecondScreenPixelsHeight, SecondScreenPixelsWidth. We have also added Router to the DeviceType classification.
Most of the new property additions relate to foldable devices and the presence of a second or third screen that can be utilised. Foldable devices first made their entry into the market and consumers hand at MWC 2019 with the release of 3 devices to market.
- Royole Flexpai
- Samsung Galaxy Fold
- Huawei Mate X
The main idea of foldable devices is to provide the consumer the ability to use the device as both a smartphone and a tablet, with a hinge or fold helping to transform the device. We have since waited to add new property metadata to the database to help categorise these devices as we were unsure if foldable devices were here to stay, or if the technology was too new (and crazy) to achieve adoption by the general public. A year on and the trend looks like it is sticking around with new releases by a majority of the big brands in the industry, although the prices are still insanely high and pricing many consumers out of the market, they are still being picked up.
March Data File Updates
- The current number of Lite combinations in our database is 454,036
- The current number of Premium combinations in our database is 1,069,888
- The current number of Enterprise combinations in our database is 1,404,538
If you haven't already, we recommend you set up Automatic Data Updates to save time. Alternatively, all of the latest data files are available to download manually here. Don't currently have a subscription? Need to access data files? Visit our evaluation page.
Product Updates
New property – IsScreenFoldable
Indicates whether the device screen is foldable or not. If the device does not have a screen or the screen is not foldable, 'False' is returned.
Values – True, False
Available in Premium, Enterprise, TAC data
New property – NumberOfScreens
Indicates the number of screens the device has. This property is not applicable for a device that does not have a screen.
Values – 1, 2, 3, 4, N/A, Unknown
Available in Premium, Enterprise, TAC data
New property – SecondScreenInchesDiagonal
Indicates the diagonal size of the device's second screen in inches. This property is not applicable for a device that does not have a second screen.
Values – Inch based values, N/A, Unknown
Available in Enterprise, TAC data
New property – SecondScreenPixelsHeight
Indicates the height of the device's second screen in pixels. This property is not applicable for a device that does not have a second screen.
Values – Pixel based values, N/A, Unknown
Available in Enterprise, TAC data
New property – SecondScreenPixelsWidth
Indicates the width of the device's second screen in pixels. This property is not applicable for a device that does not have a second screen.
Values – Pixel based values, N/A, Unknown
Available in Enterprise, TAC data
New property – Router
A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks
Recently we have been seeing more Type Allocation Codes (TACs) shared to us by existing and new customers relating to wired and wireless routers. Instead of trying to bundle these devices in with the existing MediaHub device type we decided it needed its own classification.
New examples of Routers in the database:
- TP-LINK Archer MR200
- NETGEAR Nighthawk M1 Mobile Router
- Whoop Ally HOME CONNECT
New iPads
Even with most of the Apple stores currently closed around the world, Apple still rolled out new models of the iPad Pro 11.0 & iPad Pro 12.9.
When devices send requests through the Facebook Application, we can ascertain the unique device identifier for the specific iPad, instead of having to perform a JavaScript based client-side override to derive the model.
Please see the latest User-Agents for the new models below:
iPad Pro 11.0 (2nd Generation) - Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 13_4 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/15E148 [FBAN/FBIOS;FBDV/iPad8,10;FBMD/iPad;FBSN/iOS;FBSV/13.4;FBSS/2;FBID/tablet;FBLC/da_DK;FBOP/5;FBCR/3 DK]
iPad Pro 12.9 (4th Generation) - Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 13_4 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/15E148 [FBAN/FBIOS;FBDV/iPad8,12;FBMD/iPad;FBSN/iOS;FBSV/13.4;FBSS/2;FBID/tablet;FBLC/fr_FR;FBOP/5;FBCR/Bouygues Telecom]
UA-Client Hints
With wider global issues taking over recently, Google’s plans to change the User-Agent and replace it with Client Hints has appeared to be delayed alongside future releases of their browsers.
In the links below I’ve collated existing blogs and the locations where these discussions have been taking place.
Our CEO & Founder James Rosewell’s recent LinkedIn post about Google’s privacy Sandbox.
The initial google groups thread
GitHub Discussion under the W3C tag
If you have any other concerns, we are always more than happy to discuss this matter. Please feel free to contact support@51degrees.com and we can answer your questions or set up a call.