knowledge base/practices

On an iPad any swipe down leaves element full screen, and no page can stop it

added 2026-10-12·view source

fullscreeniosipadwebkittouchgames

Fact

iPadOS WebKit (Safari, and Chrome, Edge and every other iPad browser, which all use it) puts a native UISwipeGestureRecognizer (direction down, one finger) and a pan recognizer on the full screen view itself. They recognize simultaneously with everything and never ask the page, so preventDefault() on touch events, touch-action: none and overscroll-behavior do not stop a downward swipe anywhere on screen from exiting requestFullscreen().

Why it matters

A game or drawing app played by dragging drops out of full screen at the first downward stroke, which makes the page's full screen button worse than useless. Time spent on touch handlers to block it is wasted.

How to apply

  • On iPads, do not offer requestFullscreen() for drag-driven content. Offer the Home Screen instead (apple-mobile-web-app-capable, or a manifest with display: standalone); a standalone web app has no swipe-to-exit. Third-party iPad browsers can add to the Home Screen too (iPadOS 16.4+).
  • Detect an iPad by its touch screen, not its user agent: by default it asks for desktop pages and reports a Mac. /iPad/.test(navigator.userAgent) || (navigator.platform === 'MacIntel' && navigator.maxTouchPoints > 1)
  • Opened from the Home Screen, navigator.standalone === true: hide the button.

Sources