Aw man. As a bootstrapping web business guy, I can say I've had way more problems with supporting iPads and iPhones than IE. IE costs me $0 to support, and I don't even bother (nobody asks!). Supporting hip and popular Apple browsers can run me a grand in a fast minute. Pleasing early adopters without working really well on the iPad3 is a tough sell.
I think startups fighting to support < IE9 is a done decision (don't do it). Start worrying about mobile and tablet platforms instead. 'cause the future, it's knocking.
I'm not crazy about getting an iPad myself, but I'm starting to feel cornered into spending hundreds of $$ on one just to keep those early adopters happy. I think this is where the real browser/device compatibility discussion is, not around IE.
We're in a similar position, except that we did recently drop the money for a new iPad. FWIW, it's actually a nice piece of kit, as long as you don't mind playing by Apple's rules of course.
However, the browser idiosyncracies drive me nuts, and we spent considerable time not just updating all our graphics but also redoing way too many different parts of our HTML, CSS and JavaScript in order to get the high-res images to display properly and to have the correct version of each image download efficiently on both Retina and lower resolution displays.
Not all of this is Apple's fault. Some of it comes from limitations in the current HTML and CSS specs, which would apply to high-res displays on Android devices as well. But some of it seems to be entirely due to choices in how iOS Safari does things, and the problems aren't limited to high-res images.
I'm still not entirely happy with many of the solutions we are using. I think we have a practical workaround for most of the issues, but often the results behind the scenes are just nasty and hacky. And as you say, it has been vastly more work than supporting IE9, which required approximately zero extra effort.
Is there something intrinsic to the WebKit versions on iOS products, or are your problems more general, i.e. learning how to support "limited" devices again (relatively small CPU, GPU, memory)?
What is it about the iPad 1 & 2 that is giving you so many more problems compared to the iPad 3?
I found I was spending way more time on IE bugs with Web app I recently did (~1000 users/month) than any other browser by far.
"Early adopters" - surely we're beyond calling IPad owners early adopters? As for desktop and tablet support, is it really that hard with excellent toolsets such as Bootstrap etc. ?
This is where things like 320 and up: https://github.com/malarkey/320andup and future GUI libraries (Twitter bootstrap as a single example), will start to change everything.
The main problem with what you've mentioned is the size issue. So for startups that are dire in need of building fast and getting things right but not looking stunningly beautiful - this is an option.
The people with too much money to know what to do with it, can then build things in a crazy way with agencies for the logo, different agency for web design and then a 3rd agency for build etc.
There is not supporting IE, and there is blocking IE.
You are blocking IE - I know because I changed my user agent on my firefox browser and you blocked me, and that is not cool!
You don't even offer an option to let me try anyway!
Use feature detection if you must, ignore IE completely in testing if you wish, but do not actively block it or you are just as bad as those who only support IE.
Obvisouly, positive inclusive action is better than negative action.
Properly detect IE without false-positives.
<!--[if IE]>
And inform IE-users a clear and simple explaination that IE is obsolete. And there's options for easy solutions to update to better browser. Links to the usual browser choices.
I completely agree with you. But there may be some kind of security issues with IE. Some vulnerability to site's authentication system or something? not impossible, you see.
>"In reality we've received exactly zero requests for IE support, angry or otherwise."
Why would someone bother contacting you when it appears that your site is broken? In other words, the call to action doesn't display technical competence - indeed it implies a level of technical incompetence which probably is not justified.
"We're really sorry, but Paydirt isn't playing nice with your browser" doesn't inspire confidence in the product - it doesn't suggest a high level of customer service, either. Would I really want to trust something as critical as invoicing to this company?
Furthermore, not supporting IE doesn't scale well. At 10,000 users 1.6% is $1600 a month in revenue. At 100,000 it's nearly $200,000 a year in potential revenue - all for what is mostly a one time expense.
Finally, where does this leave room for expanding services such as letting my customer's see their project in real time?
I don't see a business case for it. I'm not saying that there isn't one - just that it hasn't be made.
Personally, if my app were making 12 MILLION DOLLARS a year I'd either
a) not care about that $200k a year
or
b) I'd then have the resources to do something about it
If I were these guys I'd support Spanish and French long before I'd bother chasing that 1.6%, but no one is being critical of them not doing that.
That's good point. Taken on board, and we'll improve the page to encourage IE users to let us know. It's very true that things might change which would require us to change our tack, but as a bootstrapped startup with a hundred things requiring attention, IE support has taken a back seat.
You may have mis-interpreted the fact that because 1.6% of your users have IE, that means that you're in a space where those customers won't use IE.
What it may mean is that you don't have very many customers. If you were mainstream, you'd have more IE users... just like the rest of the Internet.
It's okay not to be mainstream... but, if time tracking is a competitive and profitable space, your competitors may be happy to share this blog post with their prospective users.
I think it's more critical than just having less IE users in that space... The thing is, 1.6% of total traffic does not equal 1.6% browser usage.
If all your IE visitors are seeing is a landing page and a message saying "sorry, we're too lazy to support for your browser", then of course they'll turn around and never come back. If they were to let IE users through, that number would most likely jump up - significantly.
I know a couple of hardcore IT guys and programmers that are really happy with IE9, and hate Firefox and Chrome with a passion. It happens!
> I've spent literally hundreds of hours trying to get sites to render pixel-perfect across various versions of various browsers
Why? This is a sub-optimal approach. The same machine with the same OS and the same version of the same browser can render very different looks just because they user has different settings.
How do you know that your user even has a visual display? Does it matter to you if they have a portrait or landscape display?
> future versions of IE will probably be standards compliant
Are you saying that all your code is standards compliant and you're not using any browser-specific extensions?
One thing I hate is websites that block me from trying to use a site based on my browser. Give me a stern warning and let me use at my own risk. I'm not defending IE this has happened just as much in firefox and chrome for me.
I applied for a job recently that wanted me to take a test that required IE and windows. I passed on the job because that test was a fail.
The web, like anything, has costs and benefits. A big benefit is that you and develop and deploy an app once, centrally, and anyone can access it from anywhere, on any sort of web device. The cost of that is that you can't control how they're accessing it. To have the benefit, you have to accept the cost.
By shirking the cost of providing even some level of support for IE, you're ditching the benefits afforded to the part-time copywriter who needs to stay at her desk and work her lunch hour during the office job she keeps to make ends meet. You're ditching the benefits afforded to the business owner on the road whose laptop won't join the hotel wifi and has to use the hotel's "business center" to issue the invoice needed to meet his mortgage payment. You're ditching the benefit of a happy customer evangelising the product to a colleague, and wanting to give them a quick demo by logging in on whichever laptop is currently hooked up to the meeting-room projector.
The times when a user doesn't have control over their environment are the times when they need a product to come through for them the most. Especially when that product is their means of getting paid.
Not being able to offer "amazing things with canvas" to IE (or any browser) is okay. Not offering support to be able to log in and perform a set of basic key tasks from any browser whatsoever is, to my mind, throwing away one of the biggest benefits the web can offer as a platform.
I target a similar audience (freelancers). If anything, a feature would be supporting IE, especially when your app does a lot with CSS3 and bleeding edge HTML5 stuff.
And features need to be justified. Planscope (http://planscope.io) gets less than 2% of all traffic from IE (chart: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2205912/iestats.png), and for actual accounts there's only been one person with IE - and that was a client that one of my customers invited in. 5 minutes later, Chrome Frame was added and everyone was happy.
I've also recently built a social network for amateur gardeners. The average age was probably 50. Did I ensure IE was fully supported? You bet.
My personal web projects always start with standard-conforming HTML with forms and links. They're fully interoperable contributions to the world-wide web and should be usable by every browser and robot written in the last sixteen years. I call that a feature, and I'm disappointed that so many devs set their sights lower.
I didn't support IE until, much to my chagrin, I discovered about 30% of my hits were from IE. Fortunately, simply putting the !doctype meta-tag (or whatever it is) fixed almost all my issues (at least for IE 8+)
Very wise. This post is by no means a prescription for everybody. We're lucky that our demographic tend to use stronger browsers. Actually, when I exclude blog traffic the IE percentage drops further. :)
If you are spending a lot of time fixing html/css issues in IE6, 7 or 8 it maybe due to over using floats and clears. Especially for elements inside a container block which are spread apart from each other like elements in a header block (<div id="header"></div> or <header></header> if HTML5).
For the header block where you have elements spread apart from each other the better solution is to add position: relative in the div id="header" and then absolute position the elements within the header (i.e. div id="logo" and on the ul for the navigation; float the li(s) though).
Using floats, margins and clears to position the MAJORITY of your elements will prove to be frustrating once you test in IE (6,7 & sometimes 8).
This is interesting because I use a pseudo-grid system with plenty of floats and clears. For some reason (research), it seems to look perfectly fine in IE 6+ and Quirks Mode.
IE "bugs" are rarely obscure. Most "bugs" are actually as-intended behavior, which is documented on MSDN. Do your homework.
> Sensible browsers can do amazing things (canvas, SVG animations, CSS3, web-sockets, blazingly fast JS), and limiting usage to these lets Paydirt take full advantage of these new technologies.
As was mentioned earlier, graceful degradation renders this point moot. Web pages do not need to look and function the same in every browser.
> Originally, we feared that we'd receive a torrent of angry emails from avid IE users. In reality we've received exactly zero requests for IE support, angry or otherwise.
Ignorance begets ignorance. The lion's share of people that use IE aren't technically savvy. They're people like parents, uncles or even grandparents. Why expect them to know how to send complaints when they barely know how to use a web browser?
> We work harder when we're happier, and skipping the dirty work of IE makes us very happy.
Clearly you were never working hard to begin with. Supporting IE is much easier than Internet FUD makes it appear.
> Who knows – future versions of IE will probably be standards compliant, super fast and reasonably secure.
You mean like IE 9? A little-known fact is that IE 4-6 were the most innovative browsers of their time. `innerHTML`? IE; event listeners (`*tachEvent`)? IE; editable text content (`innerText`)? IE. Those are some pretty important additions from a platform that seems to get no respect.
Your blog doesn't support comments. Is that a feature too?
As a developer I sympathise, but as a user I don't. I can understand not supporting IE 6 and 7, but not supporting 8 and 9 is not a feature, it's a lack of feature. It's saying that you aren't prepared to work with me the way I want to work.
It may be the right choice, but don't sell as that it's not.
IE market share has been going down for years, but it's still more or less 70%
That means that by not supporting IE you don't get 70% of the market. Early adopters come and go, but "hockey stick" growth like the one Pinterest got? that comes from the mainstream market that uses IE and doesn't knows what Firefox is, and thinks that by Chrome you mean actual chrome...
But as I said IE is going down, and when it hits 50% in 2 years or less that will be the time to stop supporting IE.
That doesn't seem to be an issue for them. From the article:
> Originally, we feared that we'd receive a torrent of angry emails from avid IE users. In reality we've received exactly zero requests for IE support,
More generally, the "market share" depends very much on what you consider to be "the market". If your target audience are big companies stuck into MS support contracts then yes, IE market share is huge. If your target audience are mostly individuals with some basic knowledge on computers, they are almost certainly already using a sensible browser.
Ten years ago you were an elite web developer if your site worked well in browsers other than IE. Today you're an elite web developer if you can make your site work well even in IE.
Getting the vast majority of sites working in IE9 is trivial (no changes required). IE8 some changes, but not a major hassle. I don't support IE7 or before. If you use a lot of HTML5 features it is hit or miss on all browsers.
[+] [-] mixonic|14 years ago|reply
I think startups fighting to support < IE9 is a done decision (don't do it). Start worrying about mobile and tablet platforms instead. 'cause the future, it's knocking.
I'm not crazy about getting an iPad myself, but I'm starting to feel cornered into spending hundreds of $$ on one just to keep those early adopters happy. I think this is where the real browser/device compatibility discussion is, not around IE.
[+] [-] Chris_Newton|14 years ago|reply
However, the browser idiosyncracies drive me nuts, and we spent considerable time not just updating all our graphics but also redoing way too many different parts of our HTML, CSS and JavaScript in order to get the high-res images to display properly and to have the correct version of each image download efficiently on both Retina and lower resolution displays.
Not all of this is Apple's fault. Some of it comes from limitations in the current HTML and CSS specs, which would apply to high-res displays on Android devices as well. But some of it seems to be entirely due to choices in how iOS Safari does things, and the problems aren't limited to high-res images.
I'm still not entirely happy with many of the solutions we are using. I think we have a practical workaround for most of the issues, but often the results behind the scenes are just nasty and hacky. And as you say, it has been vastly more work than supporting IE9, which required approximately zero extra effort.
[+] [-] shaggyfrog|14 years ago|reply
What is it about the iPad 1 & 2 that is giving you so many more problems compared to the iPad 3?
I found I was spending way more time on IE bugs with Web app I recently did (~1000 users/month) than any other browser by far.
[+] [-] blahbap|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaichanvong|14 years ago|reply
The main problem with what you've mentioned is the size issue. So for startups that are dire in need of building fast and getting things right but not looking stunningly beautiful - this is an option.
The people with too much money to know what to do with it, can then build things in a crazy way with agencies for the logo, different agency for web design and then a 3rd agency for build etc.
[+] [-] dclowd9901|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fritzy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drhowarddrfine|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ars|14 years ago|reply
You are blocking IE - I know because I changed my user agent on my firefox browser and you blocked me, and that is not cool!
You don't even offer an option to let me try anyway!
Use feature detection if you must, ignore IE completely in testing if you wish, but do not actively block it or you are just as bad as those who only support IE.
[+] [-] nardi|14 years ago|reply
1. Your reputation suffers when users encounter issues while using the browser that you don't support.
2. The support cost of "letting users try anyway" is non-zero, and probably significant.
[+] [-] Teapot|14 years ago|reply
Properly detect IE without false-positives. <!--[if IE]> And inform IE-users a clear and simple explaination that IE is obsolete. And there's options for easy solutions to update to better browser. Links to the usual browser choices.
[+] [-] Achshar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
Why would someone bother contacting you when it appears that your site is broken? In other words, the call to action doesn't display technical competence - indeed it implies a level of technical incompetence which probably is not justified.
"We're really sorry, but Paydirt isn't playing nice with your browser" doesn't inspire confidence in the product - it doesn't suggest a high level of customer service, either. Would I really want to trust something as critical as invoicing to this company?
Furthermore, not supporting IE doesn't scale well. At 10,000 users 1.6% is $1600 a month in revenue. At 100,000 it's nearly $200,000 a year in potential revenue - all for what is mostly a one time expense.
Finally, where does this leave room for expanding services such as letting my customer's see their project in real time?
I don't see a business case for it. I'm not saying that there isn't one - just that it hasn't be made.
[+] [-] toast76|14 years ago|reply
Personally, if my app were making 12 MILLION DOLLARS a year I'd either a) not care about that $200k a year or b) I'd then have the resources to do something about it
If I were these guys I'd support Spanish and French long before I'd bother chasing that 1.6%, but no one is being critical of them not doing that.
[+] [-] doctororange|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] givan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlianza|14 years ago|reply
What it may mean is that you don't have very many customers. If you were mainstream, you'd have more IE users... just like the rest of the Internet.
It's okay not to be mainstream... but, if time tracking is a competitive and profitable space, your competitors may be happy to share this blog post with their prospective users.
[+] [-] eslachance|14 years ago|reply
If all your IE visitors are seeing is a landing page and a message saying "sorry, we're too lazy to support for your browser", then of course they'll turn around and never come back. If they were to let IE users through, that number would most likely jump up - significantly.
I know a couple of hardcore IT guys and programmers that are really happy with IE9, and hate Firefox and Chrome with a passion. It happens!
[+] [-] DanBC|14 years ago|reply
Why? This is a sub-optimal approach. The same machine with the same OS and the same version of the same browser can render very different looks just because they user has different settings.
How do you know that your user even has a visual display? Does it matter to you if they have a portrait or landscape display?
> future versions of IE will probably be standards compliant
Are you saying that all your code is standards compliant and you're not using any browser-specific extensions?
[+] [-] cadooo|14 years ago|reply
I applied for a job recently that wanted me to take a test that required IE and windows. I passed on the job because that test was a fail.
[+] [-] drewmclellan|14 years ago|reply
By shirking the cost of providing even some level of support for IE, you're ditching the benefits afforded to the part-time copywriter who needs to stay at her desk and work her lunch hour during the office job she keeps to make ends meet. You're ditching the benefits afforded to the business owner on the road whose laptop won't join the hotel wifi and has to use the hotel's "business center" to issue the invoice needed to meet his mortgage payment. You're ditching the benefit of a happy customer evangelising the product to a colleague, and wanting to give them a quick demo by logging in on whichever laptop is currently hooked up to the meeting-room projector.
The times when a user doesn't have control over their environment are the times when they need a product to come through for them the most. Especially when that product is their means of getting paid.
Not being able to offer "amazing things with canvas" to IE (or any browser) is okay. Not offering support to be able to log in and perform a set of basic key tasks from any browser whatsoever is, to my mind, throwing away one of the biggest benefits the web can offer as a platform.
[+] [-] bdunn|14 years ago|reply
And features need to be justified. Planscope (http://planscope.io) gets less than 2% of all traffic from IE (chart: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2205912/iestats.png), and for actual accounts there's only been one person with IE - and that was a client that one of my customers invited in. 5 minutes later, Chrome Frame was added and everyone was happy.
I've also recently built a social network for amateur gardeners. The average age was probably 50. Did I ensure IE was fully supported? You bet.
[+] [-] doctororange|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prodigal_erik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_wot|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doctorwho|14 years ago|reply
As you grow and (hopefully) become more successful you may start running into friction from IE users who want to use your service but can't.
Once you've saturated the market of other browser users, how will you continue to grow?
When you get there I think you might regret not investing in IE support today.
What about your application is SO compelling and SO difficult to support in IE that you can afford to ignore that entire market segment?
[+] [-] vbtemp|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doctororange|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paul9290|14 years ago|reply
For the header block where you have elements spread apart from each other the better solution is to add position: relative in the div id="header" and then absolute position the elements within the header (i.e. div id="logo" and on the ul for the navigation; float the li(s) though).
Using floats, margins and clears to position the MAJORITY of your elements will prove to be frustrating once you test in IE (6,7 & sometimes 8).
[+] [-] mkmcdonald|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkmcdonald|14 years ago|reply
IE "bugs" are rarely obscure. Most "bugs" are actually as-intended behavior, which is documented on MSDN. Do your homework.
> Sensible browsers can do amazing things (canvas, SVG animations, CSS3, web-sockets, blazingly fast JS), and limiting usage to these lets Paydirt take full advantage of these new technologies.
As was mentioned earlier, graceful degradation renders this point moot. Web pages do not need to look and function the same in every browser.
> Originally, we feared that we'd receive a torrent of angry emails from avid IE users. In reality we've received exactly zero requests for IE support, angry or otherwise.
Ignorance begets ignorance. The lion's share of people that use IE aren't technically savvy. They're people like parents, uncles or even grandparents. Why expect them to know how to send complaints when they barely know how to use a web browser?
> We work harder when we're happier, and skipping the dirty work of IE makes us very happy.
Clearly you were never working hard to begin with. Supporting IE is much easier than Internet FUD makes it appear.
> Who knows – future versions of IE will probably be standards compliant, super fast and reasonably secure.
You mean like IE 9? A little-known fact is that IE 4-6 were the most innovative browsers of their time. `innerHTML`? IE; event listeners (`*tachEvent`)? IE; editable text content (`innerText`)? IE. Those are some pretty important additions from a platform that seems to get no respect.
Cut the browser elitism and get a clue.
[+] [-] mrmagooey|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanx|14 years ago|reply
As a developer I sympathise, but as a user I don't. I can understand not supporting IE 6 and 7, but not supporting 8 and 9 is not a feature, it's a lack of feature. It's saying that you aren't prepared to work with me the way I want to work.
It may be the right choice, but don't sell as that it's not.
[+] [-] JVIDEL|14 years ago|reply
That means that by not supporting IE you don't get 70% of the market. Early adopters come and go, but "hockey stick" growth like the one Pinterest got? that comes from the mainstream market that uses IE and doesn't knows what Firefox is, and thinks that by Chrome you mean actual chrome...
But as I said IE is going down, and when it hits 50% in 2 years or less that will be the time to stop supporting IE.
[+] [-] rimantas|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vog|14 years ago|reply
> Originally, we feared that we'd receive a torrent of angry emails from avid IE users. In reality we've received exactly zero requests for IE support,
More generally, the "market share" depends very much on what you consider to be "the market". If your target audience are big companies stuck into MS support contracts then yes, IE market share is huge. If your target audience are mostly individuals with some basic knowledge on computers, they are almost certainly already using a sensible browser.
[+] [-] posabsolute|14 years ago|reply
Anyway, if you have been working with html&css for more than 1 or 2 years it should not be hard to at least degrade gracefully on ie8+.
Personally I don't even think it is a choice, ie is still 30% of world average, supporting it is a must.
[+] [-] cageface|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] puppybeard|14 years ago|reply
The baseline compatibility should be "functional but not necessarily beautiful".
Not wasting time getting pixel-perfection in IE is wise. Blocking IE is retarded.
The fact that you haven't even considered using Chrome Frame says a lot about your dev skills. Or, you know, lack of.
[+] [-] brlewis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigvn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drivebyacct2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gildas|14 years ago|reply