Wrong compatibility when browsing AMO using Safari on iPadOS

[willdurand]

It looks like Safari on iPadOS reports itself as "Safari Desktop", which is a problem because users of iPads see the (RTAMO) "download Firefox" button, which will trigger the download of Firefox for macOS (DMG file).

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

[KevinMind]

Old Jira Ticket: https://mozilla-hub.atlassian.net/browse/ADDFRNT-240

[abyrne-moz]

Similar problem reported on r/firefox for iPad Firefox

[abyrne-moz]

Added needs:info so we point and triage it.

[abyrne-moz]

Possibly related: #14047

[willdurand]

Similar problem reported on r/firefox for iPad Firefox

Not that this is different. This issue is about Safari on iPadOS reporting itself as "Safari Desktop" while the Reddit thread seems to suggest that Firefox for iOS reports itself as being Safari. I'd like to better understand whether this is for all iOS devices, just iPad, or not by default in Firefox for iOS.

We have logic to detect Firefox for iOS in addons-frontend, and different patches that have landed and been verified by QA. So I'd say we used to be able to detect Firefox for iOS as "Firefox" in the past.

Possibly related: #14047

Indeed, that's a good example of "feature specific to Firefox for iOS and verified by QA".

[willdurand]

I feel like this new thing with Firefox on iPadOS should be its own bug, but anyway, there is the upstream bug: mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios#6620 - and faisalman/ua-parser-js#709 too, since we're using this lib in addons-frontend.

[janbrasna]

This has been added to ua-parser-js v2.0.0 (using multi-touch capability check), however addons-frontend still uses "ua-parser-js": "1.0.38"

According to faisalman/ua-parser-js@5ea9f0e this should work for v2.0.0 — however there are a few breaking changes regarding mobile UAs: https://github.com/faisalman/ua-parser-js/releases/tag/2.0.0-alpha.2

[willdurand]

The main problem with the v2 is #15203

[janbrasna]

Ah, gotcha. OK, in that case there is an extra trigger probably even for v1.x to poll client hints or try some feature checks, that can also uncover "Intel Mac Safari" being multi-touch, so in reality Safari on iPad in "request desktop" mode: https://docs.uaparser.dev/api/main/idata/with-feature-check.html

I'll dig around the code to experiment with that if anything can be improved using the v1.0.x branch. If not, monkeypatching an ("ontouchstart" in window) test will do…

[janbrasna]

(BTW isn't that actually a @mozilla/bedrock issue? That it should not offer DMG download on the fx/new or download/thanks page, and show the appropriate appstore buttons instead?)

EDIT: Just tried to reproduce (iPad mini 6, iOS18, WebKit in both mobile & desktop mode) and worksforme — as expected bedrock does the right thing, sees through the uastring camouflage, and offers App Store downloads on both /new and /thanks pages. No DMG downloads for me.