Mobile Device Browser File vs. WURFL for ASP.NET

Question

I am working on a commercial web application that has a separate mobile browser version intended for the more capable devices (BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, etc). I don\'t w

Answer 1

The MDBF was updated fairly recently. If what you need is basic information it's probably better as it integrates nicely with your .NET framework.

Marg.Wurfl is definitely a good choice and integrates with .NET framework as well.

Both have an approach that is good for the old .NET style, not the MVC. In MVC you will have to do your own legwork.

You might also want to consider DeviceAtlas that has an API for .NET and has very good performance in .NET.

Specifically to your questions, WURFL is updated almost once a month, while AFAIK there are no planned updates for MDBF, they will release an update if and when they feel like it (yes, not very exciting). You might use Javascript to detect features in modern browsers such as iPhone, Android and recent Nokias, but for all the rest, the User-Agent string is still the only real option, so I'd say it depends on your target market. You might want to create a super-simple version that works for all and an advanced version where you do feature detection. I don't like the idea of online services, if you plan to have a high volume site. Once-a-month updates are OK, with commercial products like DeviceAtlas or Mobile Phone Wizards you can get more frequent updates.

DISCLAIMER: I used to work for dotMobi that created DeviceAtlas