Screen Shots of Win8/IE10 Media Query Values

There is a nifty tool at MQtest.io which gives you a breakdown of how your device reports features you might use for media queries. To use the tool's own explanation:

This test isn’t about what media que­ries your device can or cannot see (but it does show an 'unsupported' label if a device doesn‘t support something). In­stead it shows you which dimen­sions your de­vice will res­pond to when using ‘width=device-width,initial-scale=1.’

As one of the seemingly few owners of a Windows 8 tablet (specifically the Asus Vivo), I sometimes get asked to check sites to make sure that a developer's media queries work properly. It was testing my own site that led me to discover the prefixed styles that IE10 needs in Metro view (which lead to my surprisingly popular post, IE10, Metro, and Media Queries).

Armed with the features that MQtest.io can help identify along with a Win8 tablet, I figured perhaps others without a Win8 tablet could benefit from some screen shots showing the MQTest.io results in various configurations of Internet Explorer 10. Please bear in mind that the numbers are for my device, and probably will not match those you would get from a Microsoft Surface or another Win8 device. At the very least, however, these will show you what tests will run in Win8/IE10 and the types of values you can expect to see.

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in desktop mode, with the tablet turned horizontally (wider than it is tall).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in desktop mode, with the tablet turned vertically (taller than it is wide).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Metro mode, with the tablet turned horizontally (wider than it is tall).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Metro mode, with the tablet turned vertically (taller than it is wide).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Snap Mode, with the browser in the narrow view.

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Snap Mode, with the browser in the wide view.

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Google Needs to Provide Android App Interstitial Alternative

Yesterday Matt Cutts from Google tweeted that Google search results for users on smartphones may be adjusted based on the kinds of errors a web site produces (of course I was excited):

Important: if your website has smartphone errors, we may change rankings for smartphone users: goo.gl/x8R4A #smx

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) June 11, 2013

Matt links to a page that outlines two examples of errors that might trigger this downgrade of a site's position in the Google search results and, right in the first paragraph, links to Google's own common mistakes page:

As part of our efforts to improve the mobile web, we published our recommendations and the most common configuration mistakes.

I think it's fair to assume that anything listed on the "Common mistakes in smartphone sites" page can negatively impact your site ranking. In particular this section on app download interstitials caught my eye:

Many webmasters promote their site's apps to their web visitors. There are many implementations to do this, some of which may cause indexing issues of smartphone-optimized content and others that may be too disruptive to the visitor's usage of the site.

Based on these various considerations, we recommend using a simple banner to promote your app inline with the page's content. This banner can be implemented using:

• The native browser and operating system support such as Smart App Banners for Safari on iOS6.


• An HTML image, similar to a typical small advert, that links to the correct app store for download.

I think it's good that Google links to the Apple article. I think it's unfortunate that Google does not link to Microsoft's own solution. If you read my blog regularly, or just follow me on Twitter, you may know that I covered both Apple's and Microsoft's app banner solution in January in the post "App Store Meta Tags."

You might also note that I stated that Google Play offers no such feature. Google, the force behind Android and the one now (or soon) penalizing sites in its search engine for app interstitials, provides no corresponding alternate solution of its own.

A great thing that Google could do for its Android users, for its search engine results, and for app developers, is to support a custom meta tag that allows web sites to promote their own Android apps in the Play store. Developers can start to replace awful Android app interstitials on web sites, users can get a cleaner experience, and site owners who can't conceive of other ways to promote their apps on their home pages can move toward something that is easier to maintain and doesn't penalize them.

I think it's nice that Google is paying attention to web devs by adjusting search results, but my ranty tweets are probably falling on deaf ears. The web would be indebted to someone who can get Google's and Android's ear on this.

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