Pattern
Pinch zoom turned off
A page’s viewport tag turns off pinch zoom while other pages on the same site leave it on. People who need to enlarge the page can’t pinch to do it in a browser that honours the tag.
5 findings at 5 companies in 3 sectors, filed under 1 heuristic
Where I found it
Apple Medium
The Apple Account sign-in page turns off pinch zoom
The viewport meta on account.apple.com/sign-in reads "maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=0", and the sign-in form’s own frame on idmsa.apple.com sets maximum-scale=1. The shop pages set no scale limit. In the footer, ‘Find an Apple Store’ and ‘other retailer’ are links inside sentences at 1.1:1 against the text around them, with no underline.
Desktop, 1440 px wide, taken 30 October 2026. The frame marks what the finding is about. Chase Medium
The Checking accounts page turns off pinch zoom
The viewport meta on the Checking accounts page, personal.chase.com/personal/checking, reads 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1, user-scalable=0', and axe meta-viewport fails on it at all 3 sizes. None of the other 34 pages sets user-scalable.
Google Medium
Flights, Finance, Maps and the 2 Search data pages turn off pinch zoom
Google Flights, Google Finance, Google Maps, ‘Search customization is on’ (/history/optout) and ‘Your data in Search’ all set ‘user-scalable=no’ in their viewport tags. The home page and Search settings don’t: their tag is ‘width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0’.
Rogers Medium
The Business phone page and TV channel listings stop people zooming in
The Business iPhone Duo page's viewport tag has maximum-scale=1, and the TV channel listings page has maximum-scale=1 and user-scalable=no. axe reports the tag on no other page of the 53.
TD Medium
The EasyWeb sign-in page turns off pinch zoom
The EasyWeb sign-in page's viewport meta tag reads 'user-scalable = no'. axe reports meta-viewport at all three sizes. The home page and the other pages examined allow zoom.
What I’d change
Remove user-scalable and maximum-scale from the viewport tag wherever they’re set, so the page allows zoom like other pages on the same site. If a layout breaks when zoomed, fix that layout.