php mobile detection

mobile browser detection made easy

I wanted to get my hands on a good mobile detection PHP script and, after playing with a couple, I decided to put together my own.

First off it’s worth mentioning the two main resources I used:

Andy Moore’s script is one of the big hitters out there that a lot of people use, but i had some problems with it.

You can download my fully commented version from http://www.richardshepherd.com/php/isMobile.zip, and here it is in all it’s glory…

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/*

isMobile.php
A PHP script to detect mobile phones.
v1.1 :: 23 September 2008

Check out my blog
http://www.richardshepherd.com

Or subscribe to my RSS feed
http://feeds.feedburner.com/RichardShepherd
*/

function isMobile() {

// Check the server headers to see if they're mobile friendly
if(isset($_SERVER["HTTP_X_WAP_PROFILE"])) {
return true;
}

// If the http_accept header supports wap then it's a mobile too
if(preg_match("/wap.|.wap/i",$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"])) {
return true;
}

// Still no luck? Let's have a look at the user agent on the browser. If it contains
// any of the following, it's probably a mobile device. Kappow!
if(isset($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"])){
$user_agents = array("midp", "j2me", "avantg", "docomo", "novarra", "palmos", "palmsource", "240x320", "opwv", "chtml", "pda", "windows ce", "mmp/", "blackberry", "mib/", "symbian", "wireless", "nokia", "hand", "mobi", "phone", "cdm", "up.b", "audio", "SIE-", "SEC-", "samsung", "HTC", "mot-", "mitsu", "sagem", "sony", "alcatel", "lg", "erics", "vx", "NEC", "philips", "mmm", "xx", "panasonic", "sharp", "wap", "sch", "rover", "pocket", "benq", "java", "pt", "pg", "vox", "amoi", "bird", "compal", "kg", "voda", "sany", "kdd", "dbt", "sendo", "sgh", "gradi", "jb", "dddi", "moto");
foreach($user_agents as $user_string){
if(preg_match("/".$user_string."/i",$_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"])) {
return true;
}
}
}

// Let's NOT return "mobile" if it's an iPhone, because the iPhone can render normal pages quite well.
if(preg_match("/iphone/i",$_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"])) {
return false;
}

// None of the above? Then it's probably not a mobile device.
return false;
}

// Here's our code to which calls the above function
if (isMobile()) {
// if the function returned true, it's a mobile.
echo "mobile"; // delete this line in your code, and uncomment the next line

// header('Location: http://www.yoursite.mobi/'); // let's redirect the page to the mobile site

} else {
// if not, we're in a standard browser and our page
// can proceed as normally formatted for the web!

echo "web"; // delete this line in your code
}

And that’s your lot. It seems to work for me under multiple browser conditions. If you have any problems, let me know.