An overview of the state of JavaScript in the mobile world. Runs some tests on six popular and up-and-coming mobile browsers.

1. Mobile JavaScript
javascriptz right in yo hands, mawfocker

2. token “me” slide
Web developer / Master Exploder at Nitobi Software
SFU graduate
Big fan of the open web
Bigger Canucks fan

3. Mobile: How’s it doing?
Browsing ~3% of all browsing takes
Today, by Device Category Trend place on a mobile device;
November, 2009 to September, 2010
Apparently 6% in Asia.
Month Desktop Mobile Consol
November, 2009 98.65% 0.04%
December, 2009 98.36% 0.05%
January, 2010 98.19% 0.05%

4. Browsers everywhere!

5. WebKit FTW
The major browser platform moving forward
Apple started it
Android jumped on
Even RIM pulled their head out of their ass and made
the switch

6. But...
Still have:
Internet Explorer Mobile; now
with extra non-compliance!
Old BlackBerry Browser, it’s so
bad it doesn’t have a name

7. so wtf do we do?
(other than drink beer)

8. codes that help
Peter Higgins’ has.js is rad
SunSpider is sweet
Sputnik is also neat

9. has.js
Peter Higgins, Dojo project lead, put this out there as of
JSConf.eu 2010.
A JavaScript feature detection library, using JavaScript.
http://github.com/phiggins42/has.js

10. SunSpider
A JavaScript benchmark.
Part of the WebKit project.

11. Sputnik
Google project, a JavaScript conformance test suite
against the ECMA-262 spec
Over 5000 tests

12. The numbers

13. Android (2.2)
has.js: apparently a few css and DOM tests fail!
function bind fails (?), and full <input> support is not
there. No es5 or svg.
SunSpider: 6121ms
Sputnik: All tests ran, 226/5246 failed (4.3%)

14. iPhone (4)
has.js: same css, dom and function bind issues as
Android. Better <input> support too. es5 is lacking, but
full SVG support (woot)?
SunSpider: 10252 ms
Sputnik: Crashed mobile safari... 3.7% tests fail
(137/3746)

15. Shitty BlackBerry, slide 1
BlackBerry OS 5.0

16. Shitty BlackBerry, slide 2
has.js results
array has no reduce or isarray methods, some regexp tests fail
no audio support, no canvas
there are lots of css bugs/lack of support: overflow, border-radius, transforms, text-
overflow, opacity.
super weak date support; no toisostring, now or tojson.
no native JSON tools (just grab json2.js from json.org)
no xhr upload events, any type of offline storage (OTHER THAN GEARS, YES!!!!)
no svg, video or vml

17. Shitty BlackBerry, slide 3
SunSpider and Sputnik
SunSpider: Didn’t finish, each test ran on average
4000ms (compared to Android’s ~100ms).
Sputnik: Can’t even get to the test runner!

18. BlackBerry 6 (WebKit)
has.js: better than both Android and iPhone. Full event
support (unlike Android/iPhone). Websockets and
worker support, that is fucking awesome. Full storage
options. SVG is super performant on it
SunSpider: 26131 ms
Sputnik: Crashed browser at 1%

19. Windows Phone 7
has.js: All array tests fail, no audio support,
getelementbyid ignores case, getelementsbytagname
returns comment nodes, so much more fail!
css bugs galore; see IE6.
no event.stopPropagation or preventDefault
BUT... VML!!!!
SunSpider: 145050 ms...
Sputnik: NOPE

20. Palm
has.js: pretty solid overall. createAttribute apparently
fails. canvas, audio, video works. sqlite and
localstorage options are there too.
SunSpider: 39193 ms
Sputnik: nope

21. Final words
Know your enemy
Pick your battles

22. BEER TIME NAO
Thanks!