Baseline is misleading for mobile-only supported features (TouchEvent is only supported by Safari for iOS)

[ADTC]

MDN URL

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/TouchEvent

What specific section or headline is this issue about?

Baseline Summary Banner

What information was incorrect, unhelpful, or incomplete?

Problem with Baseline is that it focuses on having 100% complete support for a browser, or assumes zero support by default. It's "all or nothing".

This is bad.

Just take a look at touch* events like touchstart or at TouchEvent itself. They are supported on Safari for iOS since version 3.2, but not on Safari for macOS. I believe it's rather obvious this is how Apple intends it, because they didn't deem it important to support touch events in non-touch hardware (Mac computers). Safari for macOS is not expected to run on any touch-supported hardware. This is unlikely to change unless and until Apple makes a touchscreen Mac!

So the Baseline is extremely misleading, because it gives the impression that Safari doesn't support touch events AT ALL, but in reality, Safari for iOS supports them fully, and has done so for nearly 15 years!

What did you expect to see?

It shouldn't show a ❌ cross on Safari, but rather something like a 📱 Mobile icon. And rather than Limited availability it should be Baseline widely available on mobile devices or something akin to that. Description should say "Supported on all major browsers except Safari for macOS where the lack of support is a deliberate decision by Apple."

Do you have any supporting links, references, or citations?

See the Browser Compatibility table, as well as CanIUse.com for TouchEvent.

Do you have anything more you want to share?

No response

MDN metadata

Page report details

• Folder: en-us/web/api/touchevent
• MDN URL: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/TouchEvent
• GitHub URL: https://github.com/mdn/content/blob/main/files/en-us/web/api/touchevent/index.md
• Last commit: 22080a7
• Document last modified: 2024-07-26T15:28:56.000Z

[ADTC]

Hi @Josh-Cena where should this be moved to?

[Josh-Cena]

We don't maintain baseline data here. The raw data is in https://github.com/web-platform-dx/web-features and its rendering is in https://github.com/mdn/yari. I don't know if this should be treated as a baseline specification issue (that it should not call this feature limited availability), or if it's a rendering issue (that when rendering the banner we should show more context about why these browser are unsupported). Nonetheless there's nothing actionable in our content.

[ADTC]

Thanks for the additional context. This seems like an edge case where the feature in question should be considered "baseline widely supported" but isn't considered so, due to baseline specification issue that excludes it due to a deliberate lack of support on desktops by Apple, Inc..

The banner rendering issue is secondary and it's only relevant to discuss if the baseline specification will not change in light of this edge case (or it changed to add a new spec feature for this, such that the rendering needs to adapt to the new spec feature). Then the banner rendering can adapt to expose the edge case to readers when such information will be normally hidden.

[ADTC]

It seems there's an ongoing discussion here: web-platform-dx/web-features#1038

It covers similar problems for a lot more than touch events.