DISCOVERING THE SAFARI ON IOS PLATFORM

An IOS web application runs inside the built-in Safari browser that is based on web standards, including the following:

• HTML/XHTML (HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.9, XHTML mobile profile document types)
• CSS (CSS 2.1 and partial CSS3)
• JavaScript (ECMAScript 3 (ECMA 262), JavaScript 1.4)
• AJAX (for example, XMLHTTPRequest)
• SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) 1.1
• HTML5 media tags
• Ancillary technologies (video and audio media, PDF, and so on)

Safari on IOS (which I refer to throughout the book interchangeably as Safari or Safari on IOS) becomes the platform upon which you develop applications and becomes the shell in which your apps must operate (see Figure 1-1).

Safari is built with the same open source WebKit browser engine as Safari for OS X and Safari for Windows. However, although the Safari family of browsers is built on a common framework, you’ll find it helpful to think of Safari on IOS as a close sibling to its Mac and Windows counterparts rather than as an identical twin to either of them. Safari on IOS, for example, does not provide the full extent of CSS or JavaScript functionality that its desktop counterpart does.