I have an mobile web app targeting IOS that does two potential things:
If the user does NOT have the google calendar app installed: We open a link to add an event to the web version of google calendar.
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit?text=event+title&dates=20210718T080010/20210718T083010&ctz=America/Mexico_City&details=book+details&recur=RRULE%3AFREQ%3DWEEKLY%3BCOUNT%3D11%3BBYDAY%3DSU%2CMO%2CTU%2CWE%2CTH%2CFR%2CSA%3B
And if the user DOES have the google calendar app installed, we open a DEEP LINK to add the event directly to their google calendar app.
E.G
com.google.calendar://?action=create&text=event+title&dates=20210718T080010/20210718T083010&ctz=America/Mexico_City&details=book+details&recur=RRULE%3AFREQ%3DWEEKLY%3BCOUNT%3D11%3BBYDAY%3DSU%2CMO%2CTU%2CWE%2CTH%2CFR%2CSA%3B
And testing on Safari, that all works EXCEPT - the recurrence rule doesn't seem to work for the deep link! The recurring section is just empty.
(The recurrence rule is this part recur=RRULE%3AFREQ%3DWEEKLY%3BCOUNT%3D11%3BBYDAY%3DSU%2CMO%2CTU%2CWE%2CTH%2CFR%2CSA%3B)
Am I doing something wrong?
...Further Notes if you're curious:
1: The recurrence rules are a little hard to read because they are all websafe, but they look like this
RRULE:FREQ=DAILY;INTERVAL=5;UNTIL=20210701T160000Zs
2: I would just work around this problem by opening the web link in all situations, BUT if the google calendar app is installed it intercepts the web links, and then just takes you to the main calendar and does nothing ðŸ˜
3: You should be able to open the above links on your ios device and see the behavior that I'm talking about
On further research, it appears that the Google Calendar app simply does NOT support recurrence rules on deep linking :(
Related
Hello here is my problem.
I have a scrapping app that generates an ICS file to have a hosted calendar that is automatically updated for me.
So my users all have a specific link that hosts their ics file.
To do this, they must manually enter the links in their calendar app.
I would like that by clicking on the links their app automatically offers them to subscribe to this calendar.
I would like to find a solution that would work on android, iphone and pc.
If you have any ideas it would help me a lot.
I thought of potocol webcal but obviously it would not be managed by google ect
I am implementing Firebase App Indexing as mentioned in official firebase documentation here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-indexing/ios/app.
The universal links are enabled and work fine for search results from different browsers like Safari and Chrome. They also work for other applications. But when I tap on a search result from the Google Search App in iOS. It does not take me to my app. Also on long pressing a link in the Google app does not provide an option to open link using my App. This option is however shown when I long press on links from other applications.
Does it have something to do with the Google Search app disabling the universal links deliberately. Is it possible for individual applications to prevent Universal Links from opening other applications?
Or does Apple apply restrictions itself for certain apps?
Indeed, some apps disable the capability of deep linking using Universal Links. Some notable examples: Facebook, Instagram.
Some of these apps allow deep linking via URI schemes (the old iOS 9- way of deep linking), but there is no promise that this behaviour will be persisted.
I'm guessing most of these apps would like to have the user stay within their own in-app browser instead of switching to another app.
I never tried the Google Search app, but if your universal link works perfectly in Safari and not in the Google Search app, that may be the case. In that scenario you'll need your click domain server to redirect the user to the store or some landing page, based on the User Agent of the incoming browser.
I am planning to use app link from FBSDK to invite using my iOS app via email.
I know if my iOS app was installed on the device it will be opened when I select the link and handle invite token in URL.
But how about if my app was not installed?
After user install it from App Store can I handle invite token also?
Hope anyone used to work with this scenario can help me.
There are a lot of reasons why what you're trying to do won't come out the way you want it to. Let's dive in...
App Links don't work anymore
Facebook created App Links in 2014 as an open standard to solve the limitations of URI scheme deep links. App Links have two main components:
A set of meta tags to add to the web page destination of a standard http:// link. These tags specify the custom URI scheme location of corresponding content inside the native app, and the behavior that should occur if the app is not installed.
A routing engine for use inside apps that support opening links. This engine checks the destination URL for App Links tags before opening it, and then launches the corresponding app or executes the specified fallback behavior.
App Links were supposed to be an open-source standard to change the world, making app-to-app deep linking simple and universal. Unfortunately Facebook has decided they actually don't want that world (it's much better for them to keep users inside the Facebook app — see Instant Articles if you don't believe me), meaning the App Links standard is essentially dead. It's no longer supported on the iOS Facebook app, and Applinks.org isn't even a separate website now.
App Links were not designed to work with email (or essentially any app except Facebook)
Even if it were still supported by Facebook, the App Links standard has a critical flaw: it requires work by both the origin and destination apps. While the meta tags component saw wide adoption, the only major implementations of the routing engine were in the core Facebook and Messenger apps.
To function as you want, where deep linking can occur from links in emails, the routing engine component would need to be implemented in any email app where your link could possibly be clicked. This was never going to happen for apps like the default iOS Mail app from Apple, or the Gmail app, for example.
App Links had no meaningful support for deferred deep linking
Deferred Deep Linking (Deep Linking refers to using a link to open your app directly to a specific piece of content, and Deferred means that it works even if the app isn't installed first) requires a remote server to close the loop. You can build this yourself, but you really shouldn't for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being you have more important things to do. You'll notice that neither of the two App Links components included a remove server to retain link data through install, so deferred deep linking was never properly supported in the core App Links standard. Facebook ads make use of the partial support for deferred deep linking offered by the FBSDK in conjunction with App Links, but this only works when the link/ad is clicked within a Facebook app and the receiving app has the FBSDK integrated.
Deferred deep linking is tough anyway
Moving on from App Links, deferred deep linking is still complicated. URL schemes don't work, because they always fail with an error if the app isn't installed. Apple's newer Universal Links in iOS 9+ get closer in that they at least don't trigger an error if the app isn't installed, but you'd still have to handle redirecting the user from your website to the App Store. You can't pass context through to the app after install with Universal Links, so you wouldn't be able to send the user to the correct item, and they actually aren't supported in a lot of places.
Deep linking out of email on iOS is very hard
Almost all email links involve some sort of click tracking, which is always implemented as a link wrapping redirect. This isn't technically a problem if the user doesn't have your app installed, but if they do, Universal Links don't work with wrapped links. If you're building it yourself, you'll either need to completely disable click tracking in your emails, or accept that deep links won't work there.
Bottom Line
App Links were never the solution you needed. A free service like Branch.io (full disclosure: they're so awesome I work with them) or Firebase Dynamic Links is what you need. Both services support deferred deep linking, out of Facebook or almost any email app. Branch is more powerful and offers far more features, and works with major email senders to offer a solution for deep linked email (the only one on the market today).
I'm working on app in which I need to integrate with Google Drive for my iOS App.
So I started following Quick Start. Every thing worked perfectly fine and successfully able to get list of my file with the use of query in GTLQueryDrive class. But problem is that I am getting every thing for using query so for this there is no User Interface for Google Drive (like they can show all files with logos and we can get those file and some delegate may trigger as I also noticed in android integrated project). So
Is this possible that I Google drive give some default interface for listing files with actions available, instead of just using queries.
If possible then how can Integrate or some helping tutorial link.
Looking for help. Thanks.
Is this possible that I Google drive give some default interface for listing files with actions available, instead of just using queries?
It seems what you're looking for is the Google Picker.
It's is a "File Open" dialog for the information stored in Google
servers. With Google Picker, your users can access and upload photos,
videos, maps, and documents stored in Google servers. The selection is
passed back to your web page or web application for further use. You
can read more of that in the
docs.
I have to mention though that the example used is written in Javascript.
If possible then how can Integrate or some helping tutorial link.
Try this iOS Picker demo app from Github.
For additional info about implementing Picker, watch this video from Google.
I want to use Google App Indexing with my web pages and iOS app.
I do support Universal Links (or deep links in Google lingo) with Apples Search and have my web pages set up accordingly.
From Googles documentation I am unable to find out if I really need to add the Google App Indexing SDK. The SDK does not give me any required functionality and I would prefer to skip it - but does Google rely on the SDK to be able to do the magic?
I am not doing any indexing of in app content, the only thing I want to be indexed is the web pages, and get the according deep links.
To enable App Indexing in your iOS App, adding the Google App Indexing SDK is mandatory as the documentation suggests.
This way it will be possible for your App content to be searchable by users conducting Google queries, producing results that will lead the users to open or install your App.
Concerning the SDK, it will influence ranking, whether or not the user has your App installed. This means that if your App is indexed, Google will use the content within your App as a signal in ranking and not just your web content.
Users will also see an enhanced UI with your App icon on the search results page.
Hope this helps.
You are right, getting Google search results to deep-link into your app is achievable using only Universal Links and having your web content naturally feature in Google search results.
The Google documentation isn't great, but there are two major reasons you'd want to integrate the Google App Indexing SDK:
The first, as the documentation does say, is so that Google ranks your 'app content' higher in Google search results than if you didn't integrate the SDK. My guess is that 'app content' here is defined as your web content with app related meta data, such as the <link rel=alternate> tag specified in the documentation. I've yet to find any way to validate/verify to what degree this helps - we have to trust the documentation for now.
The second is that currently, your deep-linking will only work from Safari Mobile. To facilitate deep-linking from Google search results into your app in Chrome for iOS will require implementation of Google's SDK, which will also provision a "back to Google" button in your app. To see whether this is worth doing you'd have to check your analytics to see how many of your iOS users are using Chrome instead of Safari Mobile as their main browser on iPhone.
Source for second reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NFRNamQGCc&feature=youtu.be&t=268