I have a question mainly related to the Iphone web browser but I am hoping the same solution would work on other browsers that are webkit based.
I have a application (Iphone + Android) that registers a handler for custom URI (appuri://) on the Phone. I am able to launch the application by making a link to "appuri://act/launch" from my web pages. This works only if my application is installed on the device. If the device does not have the app installed then a message comes up "Safari was not able to open ....".
What I want to do is detect if the URI Scheme is supported from the browser and then prompt my own message saying "please download the app ..blah blah blah" if the handler for the URI scheme is not found.
Is there a way I can detect or find the list of URL Scheme handlers on the Phone from the Web Browser ?
Protocol handlers are implemented below the browser, and giving foreign code direct access to operating system internals would be a pretty horrible idea, so, not without a plugin.
And since you can't run plugins in Mobile Safari, the answer's probably going to be "no."
Related
Even though the Application is installed in the iPhone, tapping Branchio universal deep-link redirecting to safari and shows a popup to launch the application.
Expected: if the application is already installed, tapping deep link should launch the application.
Pre- requests:
OS: iPhone iOS 13.3.1
Release build in Appcenter
Set custom URL to https://install.appcenter.ms/app (Appcenter)
Generate the Universal deeplink
Steps to reproduce:
Generate the Universal deep-link
Using the deep-link install the application
Again Tap on the same deep-link will redirect to Safari and popup alert with CANCEL and OPEN options
Tap OPEN in safari to launch the application
This is an expected behaviour where Apple prompts the user first time if to open the app. Only if universal links are implemented, it does not ask for the second time. Our AASA validator tool (https://branch.io/resources/aasa-validator/) shows the AASA file to validated correctly but while testing on the install page of your redirected website, it is showing a 404 error. So, we are unable to replicate this on our end to check further.
Could you please share your app store link so as to help us out here.
Also, would request to check our documentation here ( https://help.branch.io/developers-hub/docs/ios-troubleshooting#section-validate-if-aasa-file-successfully-downloaded ) so as to confirm if the device is receiving the generated AASA files. This is a known issue with Apple for iOS 13.x+ where the AASA files do not get ingested into the device and causes the link redirection to show a prompt or a fail.
I need to open a third-party app from my react native mobile app. I understand that this is called universal linking on iOS and AppLink on Android.
I have done a lot of research for this, and I have been able to set up a link to the third party app on the app store. Now I just need to get my app to open up the app if the user has it installed. That requires the URI scheme of the other app, though.
My question is, how do I get the URI scheme to this third party app? Rather, how do I get the URI scheme of any app? I know the URI scheme of the twitter app is 'twitter://app', but the app I am trying to link to is way more niche than twitter or other popular apps, so there is no help for this sort of thing online.
Any tips?
Finding the URL scheme of an iOS app
Due to Apple's tendency for secrecy, it's not easy to find the URL scheme of an iOS app. But it can be done. Here's how I do it, using a Mac app called iMazing.
Launch iMazing, select a connected iOS device, click Apps:
In the footer of the window, click Manage Apps:
Select the app you're interested in , then select Export .IPA menu item. Note: You may need to download the app first.
The saved file will have the .ipa extension. Change the extension to .zip, and unzip the file. You now have a directory with the name matching the app's name.
Assuming "asana" is the app name, open the file "asana/Payload/asana.app/Info.plist" in a text editor, and search for a section that contains "CFBundleURLSchemes". Assuming the app contains CFBundleURLSchemes (they are optional), it should look something like this:
The URL scheme is in the <string>asana</string>, so the complete url scheme in this case is "asana://". Test that the URL launches the app by typing it into iOS Safari browser window. If it works, Safari should display an alert like this:
What About Apps Without CFBundleURLSchemes?
I haven't found a way to launch apps without CFBundleURLSchemes directly, but you can link to the app's page in the App Store, where the user can open the app with the Open button (or Get button if the app is not installed).
You will need to obtain the app page's URL from the App Store:
Open App Store, go to the app's page, click the share icon:
Click Copy Link:
The URL will look like this:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/asana-organize-tasks-work/id489969512
Clicking on that link in Safari will bring up the app page in the App Store.
Maybe it is worth to start with some background:
There are various ways to deep link into an app, and it depends on the platform (iOS\Android\WindowsPhone...) and its version.
On iOS, up until version 9, the way to open an app was by using URI schemes, e.g. the one you added above: twitter://app. Each app declares the scheme that should be used. Therefore in order to deep link into the app you wish to open, you'll need to use the scheme that it declared. This is the same for Android until version 6.
Starting iOS9+, Apple introduced Universal Links as the method for deep linking. Here's some information: https://developer.apple.com/ios/universal-links/
In these versions, URI schemes won't longer work when using Safari browser (which is the iOS default browser) if the app is not installed. If the app is installed, however, URI schemes should allow opening the app, if everything is configured successfully. In Android there's a similar method called "AppLinks".
Having said this, the above information is for setting deep link for your app. I do not think that it is a common use case to open a third party app from your app - deep links are configured and used by the app owner (e.g. for publishing his\her app to engage users).
I have a requirement to open the native version of the hybrid app (.ipa/.apk/.appx) when the hybrid app is requested in a device browser.
I am able to detect the environment using WL.Client.getEnvironment(); method, if it is found to be Android/iPad, I want to launch the respective .apk/.ipa file in the device. Any help is appreciated.
Re-reading this question and the comments several times... I still do not understand the actual scenario... it'd be best to rephrase it.
Scenario: How to open an app from the web browser:
If you have added the following environments to your Worklight application:
Mobile Web
Android
iPhone
And when visiting the Mobile Web version of your app, you want to display a message like "For the full experience, open the full application by clicking here".
Then:
It is implied that the user already has the application installed.
If it is not installed, you need to take care of that somehow
The way to handle this scenario is to use URI schemas:
For Android: How to implement my very own URI scheme on Android
This means that after adding the custom URI schema to AndroidManifest.xml, you could then detect the device OS the Mobile Web app is currently running on and display a custom link: myapp://<the URI schema you've defined>. Tapping it will open the app installed on the device.
For iOS, in a similar fashion: https://coderwall.com/p/mtjaeq
Also see: http://wiki.akosma.com/IPhone_URL_Schemes
Alternate solution: If you are not sure if the app will be installed or not, then instead of using URI schemas you can always point to either Google Play or Apple App Store, to the app page; the user will then have either a "Open" or "Install" link.
Scenario: How to open an app from my own app
If you have a Worklight Hybrid application (Mobile Web is not a Hybrid application), and you want to open another application from within it, you can:
Use the same approach of URI schemas, or
Use Cordova plug-ins
I have created this Worklight 6.1.0 project to demonstrate:
Android - How to open, for example, the Android Settings app from your Worklight Hybrid app
iOS - How to check if Waze is installed and open it, and if it is not installed then to open Apple Maps instead.
See instructions.txt in the apps\test folder.
Are you asking that if the user via their device browser hits the webapp version of your app on the internet, the website will ask the user to fire up the native app on their device? kind of like what ebay does?
if that is what you want check out these pages
android:Launch custom android application from android browser
IOS:
iPhone - Open Application from Web Page
We are developing a web application in asp.net and HTML5 (+ offline feature) and we are using “Add to desktop” button to create the desktop application.
Before access main screen, we have a windows authentication screen, so people can connect using their domain credentials.
In safari, we have almost no problem. It's the expected behavior when we are online. For the offline mode, safari needs to keep an active tab with the website loaded to allow offline access to it, otherwise safari does not find website – even if it’s cached with cache manifest...
In the desktop application (using “Add to desktop” button), the authentication popup on the main page does not appears. When I trace the HTTP requests, I can see 2 requests with a return status of 401. When I look into the logs, safari sandbox throw an exception (twice tries then abort operation)... The screen remains blank.
any ideas anyone or any fix is planned to correct this problem ?
Thanks in advance for any advices.
It's a problem with iOS 7. Windows Authentication only works in "Private Mode" or in another browser such as Chrome or Puffin. However, there isn't a workaround currently available to save an app to the home screen. Here's a thread on the Apple forums about this same issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5327078?start=60&tstart=0
The new iOS 7.03 fixes this issue.
I have created a custom App URL for my iOS app. The URL format is similar to this:
myappname://texttobeparsed
This works fine when I paste the URL in safari, My App opens and correctly handles the URL. The problem is that other apps such as iMessage or Notes do not recognize this as a URL.
Why isn't this URL scheme being recognized as a URL? Could it have to do with how I set it up in my info.plist file or something else?
Or, does the URL need to be in a different format to be recognized?
I know it's possible to have the system recognize it as a URL in apps other than web-browsers because I've seen it before with other apps (ex. iTunes: itms://itunes.com/apps/appname or Twitter: twitter:// or Facebook: fb://).
There's nothing you can do about this. If the link isn't explicit (e.g. in an HTML email), these apps can just recognize a built-in set of standard URL schemes. itms:// is one of Apple's own schemes (for the iTunes Store), so it makes sense that it is supported in addition to the standard mailto://, http://, tel://... schemes.
Edit: I would guess that the information that is used to determine what constitutes a valid URL in text views etc. is cached somehow. Contrary to what I initially guessed, it seems that app-specific URLs do work in Notes, etc. I've tested this with tweetbot:// for example (which I have installed) and twitter:// (which I don't have installed) to verify that it doesn't just check for a pattern like *://, but actually uses information about the installed apps.
I'd suggest that you try to restart your device. If it's an issue with some cache, that might help and I don't think there's much else you could do if your URL scheme already works in Safari.
Update: I've installed the official Twitter app to test this, the twitter:// scheme wasn't immediately recognized in Notes, but after killing and restarting the Notes app, it worked.
Update 2: I've done a minimal test app with myappname:// as a custom URL scheme. Again, like with the Twitter app, it worked after restarting the Notes app, so it doesn't seem related to the popularity of the app or whether it's been submitted or not.
I can't answer as to why it's not working (beyond guessing that the link interpreter is hard-coded to only recognize certain URL schemes), but I can say that the typical way around this is to link to a web page, and have the web page redirect to your custom scheme.
It's slightly less elegant, because the user will see Safari open up briefly before being forwarded to your app, but it's also more robust because the web page can provide a link to the app store to install the app if it is not installed on the user's phone.