MCe Compatibility table. Updated from time to time. Last updated 2021

It would be nice if every device supported every function. It would even be nice if one device supported every function. But that is not the state of the industry. While most features are supported on all devices – more than 99% of our code works fine on all of these devices, there are a few features that some devices don't support. So, to help you make up your mind which device(s) to use, we offer this compatibility table.

There used to be a lot of features that iOS and iPadOS did not provide but Android did. The summary currently is:

• If you want to do a lot of barcode reading, consider a device that has a hardware barcode reader built in. Due to using a special light spectrum, they will usually be better than our software barcode reader that just has access to the camera. It does an excellent job – but most hardware barcode readers do a better job.
• After that – we support all major platforms – so pick based on your preferences.

Now the details:

We do not have Win RT¹ included in the list below as Microsoft has dropped this product line.

As of MCe 8.0, we do not support IE. IE is intended for 'old fashioned' web pages, not modern web applications and certainly not high-end applications like MCe, Microsoft themselves warn you not to use it because it is insecure. Microsoft's browser for that is the so called 'new' Edge. On versions of Windows that don't support Edge, use Chrome.

Firefox since 2015 has been particularly bad for bugs, so we do not recommend or support or even test use of FireFox. Well, we do test about every 6 months, but each time, most recently Summer 2021, it failed our tests.

Chrome was problematic in 2014 but since 2015 it seems to be going through better quality control. Chrome is currently (early 2016) our preferred/recommended browser – especially for barcode reading. 2017: Chrome holds the quality lead. 2018: Chrome continues to hold the quality lead. 2021: we continue to recommend Chrome or Edge – and Edge has, pun intended, a slight edge on Chrome.

The current (Chromium based) Edge has always worked well for us. In 2021 the MS team for Edge pushed some changes that drastically got rid of memory leaks in both Edge and Chrome.

We routinely test on Edge (most recent), Chrome (most recent), Safari and a few others such as Brave from time to time. We test routinely on: Windows laptops, desktops, tablets and phones, Android tablets and phones, Mac desktop, iPhone and iPad.

Brave works well, but it is slow with applications like MCe because it is constantly watching everything we do to see if it should be blocking it. We in 2021 started conversations with the Brave team, they seemed interested in 'fixing' the problem, but nothing has come of it as of the end of 2021, we therefore, because of performance – especially on the sync, recommend you not use Brave with our apps.

Important note: Edge, Chrome etc.., on iOS are NOT the Edge or Chrome browser. They are the Edge or Chrome look and feel sitting on Safari. Apple refuses to let anyone other than themselves provide a browser on iOS (iPhone/iPad) devices.

With many of these devices we do not work on the old ones. Apple is a little harder to specify because they change their hardware without changing the name in any obvious way, so for example, we work with newer iPads but not with older iPads. Generally speaking – if you can still upgrade the iOS or OSX operating system, we run on it fine.

Apple Safari simply is 'missing' standard features that are part of the HTML 5 standard, and has many known bugs that they haven't fixed even though they were reported by many people years ago.

• The major feature Apple's Safari (and Chrome which is built on the Safari engine) is missing is to give the HTMIL5 standard access to the camera/video and they simply don't provide an alternate way either. (Update: They are promising this feature fall 2017) As a result features like software barcode reading in volume (frequent use) will not be practical on an iPhone/iPad until they implement this HTML5 standard (at which point our software will magically start to use it!), but in the mean time, we provide the same barcode functionality that MC Express provides on the iPhone..
• Good news though: Apple has admitted all of these faults in their 5 year plan released publically in fall 2015 – so there is hope that things will improve – this is the first time I am aware that Apple has EVER done this type of information release, it wasn't Job's style of corporate management – he just called them 'uncompleted features'. (2017 update: They gave us one major feature in 2016 and so the references to that not working have been removed. One of these features, as above, is promised to be fixed in 2017. The others … still waiting.)

As of our 8.9 release. (We are at 10.x as of writing) Apple fixed their bugs and we removed our block that was 'protecting' you against those bugs.

X means the feature is not supported on the listed platform. X means the feature is poorly supported on the listed platform. ✔means it the feature is supported on the listed platform with no restrictions that prevent it being used effectively.

? means that we don't know or our results are inconclusive (we may be working on a patch.)

All reports for IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari assume the most recent versions unless otherwise stated. Since modern versions update automatically on most platforms we assume that you have updated if your platform is able. Also, fortunately, once a feature is supported on a platform, we've never seen it taken away by the manufacturer on a later upgrade.