System Requirements

The short answer

Any phone, tablet or computer bought from 2020 onwards will work, as long as it still receives updates and you have accepted them.

That covers every iPad and iPhone from 2020, every Mac from 2020, Android phones and tablets from 2020, and any Windows PC running an up-to-date Chrome or Edge.

You do not need to install anything. A museum opens in the web browser your device already has.

Older devices usually work too

2020 is the line we guarantee, not the line where things stop working. We build and test well below it — an iPad from 2014 that has taken its final update still opens a museum today. If you have an older device, try it. If it does not work, tell us which device it is rather than assuming it is too old.

What we test on

Every room is checked on a real iPad, not only on a developer’s computer, and on the oldest software Apple still supports rather than only the newest. Family members are frequently on older hardware than the person setting the museum up, and that is the case we care about most.

What will not work

• Internet Explorer. Microsoft retired it, and no site of this kind supports it. Use Edge, which is already on the same computer.
• A device that can no longer install updates. This is usually the real problem rather than the device’s age. A tablet stuck several years behind on updates will eventually meet a site it cannot open, and this is one of them.
• A device with JavaScript turned off, which is rare and usually deliberate.

Things that matter more than the device

Keep the device updated. A 2016 iPad that has taken every update it can will do better than a 2021 tablet that has taken none.

A steady internet connection. Photographs and films are large. They will load on a slow connection, just slowly — nothing breaks, it simply takes longer.

Screen size changes the layout, not the content. A museum reflows for a phone; nothing is hidden or removed. A tablet or a computer is the more comfortable way to spend time in one, and a phone is perfectly good for a quick visit.

If something does not look right

Tell us the device and roughly how old it is, and what you saw. That is almost always enough to identify the cause. A screenshot helps more than a description, and “it looks wrong” from a real family member is more useful to us than any amount of testing on our own machines.