I implemented Universal Links in our iOS 9 app and they work by calling a method in AppDelegate.swift, in which I get an NSUserActvity with an URL attached to it.
Is there a way to get the (HTTP-) referer? I need to know on which website the user has tapped the link that opened the app.
You should be able to use NSUserActivity > referrerURL instance property. See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsuseractivity/2875762-referrerurl.
No, there is no way to get the referrer.
An Apple employee made that pretty clear on the developer forums: https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/65423
They say that the only way to get some kind of referrer would be to append it to the URL. Maybe take a look Google's campaign tracking URLs (utm_...).
I found another interesting solution if you need to support iOS 9 and 10 - https://appmetrica.yandex.com/blog/referrer-based-tracking-dlya-ios-tochnaya-atributsiya-dlya-lyubogo-istochnika-trafika.
Since iOS 11 I guess can be used NSUserActivity > referrerURL.
In short:
SFSafariViewController uses the same cookies as Safari app.
You can open invisible SFSafariViewController inside your app.
If your site contains some cookie - use Universal Link to pass it back to the app.
Though it requires to implement something like tracking link on your site.
Related
I'm currently working on an iOS app, Swift 4, that automatically launches on click of a link to block users from accidentally navigating to that link.
How would I set this up?
For example, YouTube opens up youtube.com links.
Sorry if this is a vague question, if more info is required feel free to ask ^^
If you create a custom URL protocol like myapp://somepath (where myapp is the protocol) then you just register that custom protocol, and when the user clicks such a link it’ll automatically open your app. You can’t intercept a general purpose URL protocol like HTTP or YouTube.
(At least not without OS support. That's how YouTube and the app store are able to open HTTP links.)
I haven't done anything like this so far but it seems like you should take a look at Apple URL Scheme and Universal Links:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Introduction/Introduction.html
https://coderwall.com/p/mtjaeq/ios-custom-url-scheme
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/AppSearch/UniversalLinks.html
https://www.raywenderlich.com/128948/universal-links-make-connection?utm_source=raywenderlich.com%20Weekly&utm_campaign=95f29cf4fc-raywenderlich_com_Weekly5_31_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_83b6edc87f-95f29cf4fc-415182745
Hi I have a requirement in my app. From my ios Application(myapp),i share a link to facebook. Then I opened up my facebook account in browser or Facebook application and clicked the link, link should open in myapp if myapp is installed in the device otherwise link should open in browser. How can I achieve this ? Please suggest me step by step. Thanks in advance for your consideration and help.
I am not sure if this is possible. I have looked at various questions including
Is it possible to register a http+domain-based URL Scheme for iPhone apps, like YouTube and Maps?
as I am sure you might have already done but these questions target their own app, mainly web app, but you want that behavior to occur from an app that is not yours like twitter or facebook. But what you can do is show them two links on facebook/twitter, if they have installed press link 1 and if they want to install, press link 2 and you can pass parameters in link 1 as you might already know.
I will also keep checking answer of this question if some one comes and gives a better solution.
There is an option called custom URL scheme in iOS. It will help you to create a URL scheme which identifies your application. You can post link with this URL scheme and when you tap on this link on your iOS device it will open up your mobile app. Please see the link below to know how to setup this.
Custom URL Scheme in iOS
This is called 'deep URL linking'. Facebook have built a service called 'App Links', which seems pretty cool.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ios/app-links
To launch app page in App Store app on iOS 7, this URL format is required:
#"itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id%#"
Can you also append the affiliate ID and campaign token to this URL like this?
#"itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id%#&at=%#&ct=%#"
Or does it have to be a plain
#"https://itunes.apple.com/app/%#/id%#?mt=8&uo=4"
type URL like you do in websites? Disadvantage of this URL is it opens Safari and causes redirects.
Try it and see; the link will either open or it won't, and if it does, and if you specify a custom campaign for testing, it will either show up in PHG or it won't. Let us know what happens, as I'm curious myself.
Oh, and if it doesn't, please file a bug, as that seems like a useful feature, and it should be trivial for Apple to add it if they haven't already.
Is it possible to launch any of the apps I made directly from the calendar?
If I have a particular entry in my calendar can I link it to an app?
No it is not.
But as CodaFi stated, you could try to implement custom URL schemes in your app and note the appropriate url in the calendar event.
Update:
No, it doesn't work even with the url inside the calendar event because it doesn't recognizes it as a link.
Update 2:
I've found a question with the same problem. Sadly it's not working for me, but i can test it only on iOS6 and it may be broken there.
Yes you can. The app you want to use needs to support URL schema. You must have some text after the schema:// though for Calendar to recognise. It works fine ios4+ (inc 6).
E.g. For Facebook profile you could use fb://me and it will load. Fb:// won't work.
You can open a custom URL Scheme from inside the calendar app with 1 large caveat. The calendar app only recognizes URL schemes that were registered BEFORE the calendar was opened. Meaning if your calendar is open when you install your app, the calendar will not recognize the URL scheme as a valid URL.
One of my client wants to open Apple's native weather app from our application. After few I don't see a possible way, unless we need to go with any 3rd party apps which provides custom url scheme.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007899
It would be great if someone confirm or give me a lead if it is possible.
Its not possible, the weather app doesn't have a known URL scheme and I dubt that it has an unknown one.
The website handleOpenURL is an excellent resource for custom iOS URL schemes; use this link to search for the known Apple app schemes.
Unfortunately the weather app is not among them.
Another couple of sites with schemes (handleOpenURL seems to be the most complete, but it can't hurt to check the others):
app lookup
Akosma iPhone URL Scheme Wiki
You can open the weather app with this URL: weather://
Here is a codepen demo I got to work: https://codepen.io/irom1/pen/KKeZBMW
Open weather
I found another site for sharing the url scheme - http://schemes.zwapp.com/