Authors: Evgeniy Valyaev, Frontend Engineer, and Travis Turner, Tech EditorTopics: iOS, JavaScript, CSS, TypeScript
Read how to accurately detect Safari and iOS versions using WebKit feature checks, behavioral tests, and selective UA hints to gate features safely and avoid breaking UX.
Why is accurately detecting the version of Safari and iOS you're dealing with so important for modern web development? The reasons are seriously many: applying fixes/enhancements only where needed, preventing confusion for users on other browsers, displaying the right prompts for actions or installations, enabling or disabling features, providing accurate analytics, and support users with tailored instructions, especially since some browsers “masquerade” in their user agent strings or behave differently in WebViews. In this post, we'll talk about how to identify Safari/iOS versions with ease in 2025 (and beyond).
