Detect if device is iOS

Question

I'm wondering if it's possible to detect whether a browser is running on iOS, similar to how you can feature detect with Modernizr (although this is obviously device detection rather than feature detection).

Normally I would favour feature detection instead, but I need to find out whether a device is iOS because of the way they handle videos as per this question YouTube API not working with iPad / iPhone / non-Flash device

Answer 1

Detecting iOS

With iOS 13 iPad both User agent and platform strings are changed and differentiating between iPad and MacOS seems possible, so all answers below needs to take that into account now.

This might be the shortest alternative that also covers iOS 13:

function iOS() {
  return [
    'iPad Simulator',
    'iPhone Simulator',
    'iPod Simulator',
    'iPad',
    'iPhone',
    'iPod'
  ].includes(navigator.platform)
  // iPad on iOS 13 detection
  || (navigator.userAgent.includes("Mac") && "ontouchend" in document)
}

iOS will be either true or false

Worse option: User agent sniffing

User Agent sniffing is more dangerous and problems appear often.

On iPad iOS 13, the user agent is identical with that of a MacOS 13 computer, but if you ignore iPads this might work still for a while:

var iOS = !window.MSStream && /iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.userAgent); // fails on iPad iOS 13

The !window.MSStream is to not incorrectly detect IE11, see here and here.

Note: Both navigator.userAgent and navigator.platform can be faked by the user or a browser extension.

Browser extensions to change userAgent or platform exist because websites use too heavy-handed detection and often disable some features even if the user's browser would otherwise be able to use that feature.

To de-escalate this conflict with users it's recommended to detect specifically for each case the exact features that your website needs. Then when the user gets a browser with the needed feature it will already work without additional code changes.

Detecting iOS version

The most common way of detecting the iOS version is by parsing it from the User Agent string. But there is also feature detection inference*;

We know for a fact that history API was introduced in iOS4 - matchMedia API in iOS5 - webAudio API in iOS6 - WebSpeech API in iOS7 and so on.

Note: The following code is not reliable and will break if any of these HTML5 features is deprecated in a newer iOS version. You have been warned!

function iOSversion() {

  if (iOS) { // <-- Use the one here above
    if (window.indexedDB) { return 'iOS 8 and up'; }
    if (window.SpeechSynthesisUtterance) { return 'iOS 7'; }
    if (window.webkitAudioContext) { return 'iOS 6'; }
    if (window.matchMedia) { return 'iOS 5'; }
    if (window.history && 'pushState' in window.history) { return 'iOS 4'; }
    return 'iOS 3 or earlier';
  }

  return 'Not an iOS device';
}

Answer 2

Detecting iOS (both <12, and 13+)

Community wiki, as edit queue says it is full and all other answers are currently outdated or incomplete.

const iOS_1to12 = /iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.platform);

const iOS13_iPad = (navigator.platform === 'MacIntel' && navigator.maxTouchPoints > 1));

const iOS1to12quirk = function() {
  var audio = new Audio(); // temporary Audio object
  audio.volume = 0.5; // has no effect on iOS <= 12
  return audio.volume === 1;
};

const isIOS = !window.MSStream && (iOS_1to12 || iOS13_iPad || iOS1to12quirk());

Answer 3

The user-agents on iOS devices say iPhone or iPad in them. I just filter based on those keywords.

Answer 4

This sets the variable _iOSDevice to true or false

_iOSDevice = !!navigator.platform.match(/iPhone|iPod|iPad/);

Answer 5

UPDATE: My original answer doesn't cover iPad in desktop mode (the default changes to desktop mode in upcoming iPadOS 13 and higher).
That's fine for my usecases, if it's not for you, use this update:

// iPhone and iPad including iPadOS 13+ regardless of desktop mode settings

iOSiPadOS = /^iP/.test(navigator.platform) ||
           /^Mac/.test(navigator.platform) && navigator.maxTouchPoints > 4;

• This should be safe as long as
  • desktop Macs don't support touch events at all
  • or not more than 4 touch points (current iOS devices support 5 touch points)
• It's fast because the regexp ^ first checks the starting position of the platform string and stops if there is no "iP" (faster than searching the long UA string until the end anyway)
• It's safer than navigator.userAgent check as navigator.platform is much less likely faked
• Detects iPhone / iPad Simulator

---

ORIGINAL ANSWER:
Wow, a lot of longish tricky code here. Keep it simple, please!

This one is IMHO fast, save, and working well:

 iOS = /^iP/.test(navigator.platform);

  // or, if you prefer it verbose:
 iOS = /^(iPhone|iPad|iPod)/.test(navigator.platform);

Answer 6

If you're using React, There is great library for this kind of issues: REACT-UGENT. (Built with ua-parser-js.)

https://github.com/medipass/react-ugent

Available browsers are:

chrome, chromium, edge, firefox, ie, lynx, safari, opera

Available OS are:

android, blackberry, chromium os, debian, ios, linux, mac os, ubuntu, unix, windows

Available devices are:

console, computer, mobile, tablet, smarttv, wearable, embedded

Easy to use as:

<Ugent browser="safari" os="ios">
  <div>
    This text only shows on Safari on iOS.
  </div>
</Ugent>

If you're not using React, basically, you can use - ua-parser-js

https://github.com/faisalman/ua-parser-js

Answer 7

There is no need to test navigator.userAgent or navigator.platform:

const isIOS = typeof navigator.standalone === 'boolean';

navigator.standalone is only set on iOS Safari. See MDN, Safari HTML Reference.

Answer 8

You can also use includes

  const isApple = ['iPhone', 'iPad', 'iPod', 'iPad Simulator', 'iPhone Simulator', 'iPod Simulator',].includes(navigator.platform)

Answer 9

None of the previous answers here work for all major browsers on all versions of iOS, including iOS 13. Here is a solution that works for Safari, Chrome and Firefox for all iOS versions:

var isIOS = (function () {
    var iosQuirkPresent = function () {
        var audio = new Audio();

        audio.volume = 0.5;
        return audio.volume === 1;   // volume cannot be changed from "1" on iOS 12 and below
    };

    var isIOS = /iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.userAgent);
    var isAppleDevice = navigator.userAgent.includes('Macintosh');
    var isTouchScreen = navigator.maxTouchPoints >= 1;   // true for iOS 13 (and hopefully beyond)

    return isIOS || (isAppleDevice && (isTouchScreen || iosQuirkPresent()));
})();

Note that this code snippet was written with priority on readability, not conciseness or performance.

Explanation:

• If the user agent contains any of "iPod|iPhone|iPad" then clearly the device is iOS. Otherwise, continue...

• Any other user agent that does not contain "Macintosh" is not an Apple device and therefore cannot be iOS. Otherwise, it is an Apple device, so continue...

• If maxTouchPoints has a value of 1 or greater then the Apple device has a touch screen and therefore must be iOS since there are no Macs with touch screens (kudos to kikiwora for mentioning maxTouchPoints). Note that maxTouchPoints is undefined for iOS 12 and below, so we need a different solution for that scenario...

• iOS 12 and below has a quirk that does not exist in Mac OS. The quirk is that the volume property of an Audio element cannot be successfully set to any value other than 1. This is because Apple does not allow volume changes on the Audio element for iOS devices, but does for Mac OS. That quirk can be used as the final fallback method for distinguishing an iOS device from a Mac OS device.

Answer 10

I wrote this a couple years ago but i believe it still works:

if(navigator.vendor != null && navigator.vendor.match(/Apple Computer, Inc./) && navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone/i) || (navigator.userAgent.match(/iPod/i))) 

    {

        alert("Ipod or Iphone");

    }

else if (navigator.vendor != null && navigator.vendor.match(/Apple Computer, Inc./) && navigator.userAgent.match(/iPad/i))  

    {

        alert("Ipad");

    }

else if (navigator.vendor != null && navigator.vendor.match(/Apple Computer, Inc./) && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Safari') != -1)

    {

        alert("Safari");

    }

else if (navigator.vendor == null || navigator.vendor != null)

    {

        alert("Not Apple Based Browser");

    }

Answer 11

In my case the user agent was not good enought since in the Ipad the user agent was the same as in Mac OS, therefore I had to do a nasty trick:

var mql = window.matchMedia("(orientation: landscape)");

/**
 * If we are in landscape but the height is bigger than width
 */
if(mql.matches && window.screen.height > window.screen.width) {
    // IOS
} else {
    // Mac OS
}

Answer 12

For anyone looking to be compliant with PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse best practices which flags "issues" found in the console for the use of navigator.userAgent (etc), this can help you (I gleaned this from Boostrap 5):

function getUAString() {
    let uaData = navigator.userAgentData;
    if (null !== uaData && uaData.brands) {
        return uaData.brands.map(item => item.brand + '/' + item.version).join(' ');
    }
    return navigator.userAgent;
}

const isIOS = /iP(hone|od|ad)/.test(getUAString());

Answer 13

If you are using Modernizr, you can add a custom test for it.

It doesn't matter which detection mode you decide to use (userAgent, navigator.vendor or navigator.platform), you can always wrap it up for a easier use later.

//Add Modernizr test
Modernizr.addTest('isios', function() {
    return navigator.userAgent.match(/(iPad|iPhone|iPod)/g);
});

//usage
if (Modernizr.isios) {
    //this adds ios class to body
    Modernizr.prefixed('ios');
} else {
    //this adds notios class to body
    Modernizr.prefixed('notios');
}

Answer 14

Wherever possible when adding Modernizr tests you should add a test for a feature, rather than a device or operating system. There's nothing wrong with adding ten tests all testing for iPhone if that's what it takes. Some things just can't be feature detected.

    Modernizr.addTest('inpagevideo', function ()
    {
        return navigator.userAgent.match(/(iPhone|iPod)/g) ? false : true;
    });

For instance on the iPhone (not the iPad) video cannot be played inline on a webpage, it opens up full screen. So I created a test 'no-inpage-video'

You can then use this in css (Modernizr adds a class .no-inpagevideo to the <html> tag if the test fails)

.no-inpagevideo video.product-video 
{
     display: none;
}

This will hide the video on iPhone (what I'm actually doing in this case is showing an alternative image with an onclick to play the video - I just don't want the default video player and play button to show).

Answer 15

var isiOSSafari = (navigator.userAgent.match(/like Mac OS X/i)) ? true: false;

Answer 16

If you are still trying to check if is iOS or not, I recommend you to use this approach:

1. Create a folder called helper
2. Create a file called platform.ts or platform.js
3. Export the function isIOS:

export const isIOS = () => {
    let platform = navigator?.userAgent || navigator?.platform || 'unknown'

    return /iPhone|iPod|iPad/.test(platform)
}

The result will be true if is an iPhone or iPod or Ipad or it will be false otherwise.

You may ask, why do I need to check navigator.userAgent || navigator.platform, well the reason is simple the second option used to be the default one but now it is deprecated and some browsers will stop supporting this in the future, the first one is more reliable.

You can check here about the deprecation that I mentioned above:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/platform#:~:text=Deprecated%3A%20This%20feature%20is%20no,be%20kept%20for%20compatibility%20purposes.

Logging the userAgentData, userAgent and platform.

Using the function below, I received these logs:

    console.log({
        userAgentData: navigator?.userAgentData?.platform,
        userAgent: navigator?.userAgent,
        platform: navigator?.platform,
    })

    {
        "userAgentData": "",
        "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 13_2_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/13.0.3 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1",
        "platform": "MacIntel"
    }

I was testing it on my Macbook and it worked on different browsers and operation systems. So, as you can see navigator?.userAgentData?.platform will not work at all.

I also didn't receive any errors related to my typescript, even though that I am using React to call this function.

Bonus, isAndroid

If you wondering how to check if is an Android platform, I suggest you don't follow the idea of doing the opposite of isIOS as:

const isAndroid = !isIOS();

The reason is quite simple, it will not work since desktops will be recognized as an Android platform. To solve this problem you just need to do this check:

export const isAndroid = () => {
    const ua = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase() + navigator?.platform.toLowerCase();
    const isAndroid = ua.indexOf("android") > -1;

    return isAndroid;
}

The reason why we are checking navigator.userAgent plus navigator?.platform is to support old browsers and the new ones.

Answer 17

this was my solution after suffering a lot its not perfect but hope to help someone, I have tried it and it’s and it exactly target iPad safari.

function detectSafariOnIpadOS() {
  var userAgent = navigator.userAgent;
  var isSafari = /^((?!chrome|android).)*safari/i.test(userAgent);
  var isIpad = /iPad/i.test(userAgent);
  var isMacintosh = /Macintosh/i.test(userAgent);
  var isTouchDevice = "ontouchend" in document;

  console.log("User Agent:", userAgent);
  console.log("detectSafariOnIpadOS result:", isSafari && (isIpad || (isMacintosh && isTouchDevice)));

return isSafari && (isIpad || (isMacintosh && isTouchDevice));
}

Answer 18

Make use of Apple Pay JS API checks

`if (window.dw && window.dw.applepay && window.ApplePaySession && window.ApplePaySession.canMakePayments()) {

// do the needful

}`

Answer 19

Because navigator.platform is deprecated and it is better to not use it anymore, I want to add an other solution.

You can filter on MacOS systems by checking the navigator.vendor. When the outcome is Apple Computer, Inc., you know it is MacOS.

Answer 20

A simplified, easy to extend version.

var iOS = ['iPad', 'iPhone', 'iPod'].indexOf(navigator.platform) >= 0;

Answer 21

After iOS 13 you should detect iOS devices like this, since iPad will not be detected as iOS devices by old ways (due to new "desktop" options, enabled by default):

let isIOS = /iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.platform)
|| (navigator.platform === 'MacIntel' && navigator.maxTouchPoints > 1)

The first condition for iOS < 13 or iPhone or iPad with disabled Desktop mode, the second condition for iPadOS 13 in the default configuration, since it position itself like Macintosh Intel, but actually is the only Macintosh with multi-touch.

Rather a hack than a real solution, but work reliably for me

P.S. As being said earlier, you probably should add IE checkup

let isIOS = (/iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.platform) ||
(navigator.platform === 'MacIntel' && navigator.maxTouchPoints > 1)) &&
!window.MSStream

Answer 22

In order to detect the iOS version, one has to destructure the user agent with a Javascript code like this:

 var res = navigator.userAgent.match(/; CPU.*OS (\d_\d)/);
    if(res) {
        var strVer = res[res.length-1];
        strVer = strVer.replace("_", ".");
        version = strVer * 1;
    }

Answer 23

It's probably worth answering that iPads running iOS 13 will have navigator.platform set to MacIntel, which means you'll need to find another way to detect iPadOS devices.