Java Servlets - How do I detect if a user is from a mobile device?

Question

Java Servlets - How do I detect if a user is from a mobile device?

I'm using the TinyMCE javascript editor, and it doesn't work on the iphone. How can I detect if the user is coming from a mobile device?

Answer 1

I have used the UAgentInfo.java class you can download here (http://code.google.com/p/mobileesp/source/browse/Java/UAgentInfo.java):

private boolean isRequestComingFromAMobileDevice(final HttpServletRequest request){

    // http://www.hand-interactive.com/m/resources/detect-mobile-java.htm
    final String userAgent = request.getHeader("User-Agent");
    final String httpAccept = request.getHeader("Accept");

    final UAgentInfo detector = new UAgentInfo(userAgent, httpAccept);

    return detector.detectMobileQuick();
}

The UAgentInfo class has a bunch of methods to detect particular devices as well. Just replace detector.detectMobileQuick() for, for instance, detector.detectIphoneOrIpod(), detector.detectKindle(), etc.

UPDATE: If you use Spring, you might want to use its native implementation instead. Here is an example: http://spring.io/guides/gs/device-detection/