1169983 - Google Maps doesn't display +/- zoom buttons, when you're using a Firefox OS user agent (but does show them for Firefox for Android)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:41.0) Gecko/41.0 Firefox/41.0

STR:
1. Visit maps.google.com in Firefox OS browser
2. Try to zoom out.

ACTUAL RESULTS:
no visible zoom controls. Pinch zooming has no effect.

For comparison, Firefox nightly on Android renders Google maps with a +/- zoom control in bottom left corner. These controls are missing on Firefox OS.

Comment 1

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: screenshot of Google Maps w/ no zoom controls (Xperia Z3C)

Version info for Firefox OS on my Xperia Z3 (where I'm seeing this issue):
  Build Identifier: 20150528210322
  Update channel: dogfood
  Git commit info: 2015-05-28 19:50:18   18f7c340

Comment 2

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: screenshot using Firefox Nightly for Android, for comparison (zoom controls are present)

Comment 3

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

I can reproduce this on Desktop, by simply spoofing the Firefox OS vs. Firefox for Android user agent and loading http://maps.google.com/

Firefox OS User agent:
 Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/41.0
 *No* zoom controls shown on Google maps.

Firefox Android user agent:
 Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:41.0) Gecko/41.0 Firefox/41.0
 Zoom controls *are* shown on Google maps.

Reclassifying as Tech Evangelism | Mobile.

Comment 4

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Also: "Android" seems to be the magic word in the Firefox for Android UA string. If I remove that word, it stops receiving +/- zoom controls.

I reached out to some Google contacts over email to see if they can help out here.

Comment 5

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #0)
> ACTUAL RESULTS:
> no visible zoom controls. Pinch zooming has no effect.

(The latter bit about pinch zooming is covered by bug 1150284 & bug 1146609, BTW (which are probably dupes of each other).  Focusing this bug here on the zoom control widget being absent.)

Comment 6

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Results from the email discussion:
 - Zoom control buttons are only intended to be shown on devices that don't support multitouch.
 - So, Firefox OS isn't getting the zoom buttons because Google is (correctly) classifying it as supporting multi-touch.  (though unfortunately their multi-touch code doesn't work on Firefox currently, which is bug bug 1150284.)
 - It's actually a (google) bug that zoom controls are showing up in Firefox for Android; given that we support multi-touch there, they'd expect the zoom controls to be hidden.

So:
 - Google has internal bugs tracking both issues (the multi-touch zooming not working, and the UA classification being broken)
 - They said they won't tweak the UA classification to remove zoom controls from Firefox on Android until after mutlitouch handling is fixed.
 - Neither bug is high-priority for them, because Firefox isn't on their list of supported mobile browsers: https://developers.google.com/maps/faq#browsersupport

Comment 7

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

We now do not see +/- in Firefox for Android with the version number. 
Note that it is different when Firefox for Android is sent without version number. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comment 8

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

I will close as Fixed(?)