Ready for Trial: Read Chrome device attributes

[Anqing Zhao]

Contact emails

anq...@chromium.org

Explainer

https://github.com/Ananubis/WebApiDevice/blob/master/Explainer.md

Specification

TBD.

Summary

Managed Device Attributes Web API is a subset of Managed Device Web API, that provides to web applications the capability to query device information (device ID, serial number, location, etc).

Blink component

Blink

TAG review

https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/606

TAG review status

Pending

Interoperability and Compatibility
TBD.

Gecko: No signal
WebKit: No signal

Web developers: No signals

Goals for experimentation

Make sure that the API works as expected and can fulfill the target requirement. (Please follow the guide in the README.md file.)

Ongoing technical constraints

This API is available only when the following feature flags are turned on in the chrome://flag page.

• enable-experimental-web-platform-features: enables experimental Web Platform features that are in development.
• enable-restricted-web-apis: enables the restricted web APIs for the 'Dev Trials' stage.

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and Android WebView)?

No. At this stage, this feature is only supported on the Chrome OS.

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

No

Tracking bug

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1132865

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5694001745231872

Links to previous Intent discussions

Intent to prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/oYRwgx8SwTA/m/OTfKKCMZBQAJ

[Mike Taylor]

Hi Anqing,

On 2/5/21 4:54 PM, Anqing Zhao wrote:
> Explainer
>
> https://github.com/Ananubis/WebApiDevice/blob/master/Explainer.md
> <https://github.com/Ananubis/WebApiDevice/blob/master/Explainer.md>

I took a peek at the explainer and noticed that this API adds a `device`
to the Navigator interface.

This may or may not be problematic in the future, as Apache Cordova
(formerly Phonegap) had a `navigator.device.capture` API offered through
a plugin[1]. I'm not sure how much of that leaked onto the web (as the
intended target is native mobile apps, but something to be aware of in
case origins who enable this API report issues.

[1]
<https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/reference/cordova-plugin-media-capture/>

thanks,
Mike

[Anqing Zhao]

Hey Mike. Thanks for sharing this link and pointing out the potential conflict. Besides other similar considerations, we are thinking of using `navigator.managed` as the interface name. The related discussion is located at https://github.com/WICG/WebApiDevice/issues/3. Please feel free to leave a message or let me know if you have a better idea.