How to make deferred deep linking and generate unique mobile signature. I try using IP Address, screen-size, OS version, device name but still not get succeed.
The comment links to a great answer, certainly. High level, here are the steps:
Your links should point to a page on your site that collects a digital fingerprint
That page should collect, at minimum, IP address, OS, OS version and screen size (width and height). Should send to your server and place in a persistent store. Redis works great for this because of its fast lookup times. Also record some sort of unique identifier for which link was clicked (that could be the value in redis).
Then redirect to the app (URI scheme) and have a fallback to the App Store/Play Store. Here's an example for iOS. The beauty of the iframe is that it kills the alertView if the app is not installed. This should be placed in the body:
<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload = function() {
// Deep link to your app goes here
document.getElementById("l").src = "my_app://";
setTimeout(function() {
// Link to the App Store should go here -- only fires if deep link fails
window.location = "https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my.app/id123456789?ls=1&mt=8";
}, 500);
};
</script>
<iframe id="l" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden"></iframe>
When a user opens your app, send up the same combination of params to your servers and search your persistent store to see if this device recently clicked on a link. Send a response down to your app (e.g. { link_id: "1234" } or { link_id: -1 }) Your app logic should then respond based on which link was clicked.
Hopefully this makes sense. We do this at Branch and can assure you that it's harder than it looks to roll this solution from scratch. There are a ton of edge cases introduced by individual browsers and even individual apps (e.g. when links are shared to Twitter and clicked on in the native Android app). But at it's core fingerprinting is relatively simple. Hopefully the above was helpful.
Related
I've set up Universal Links on my iOS app using an aliased subdomain of my backend with a scheme like sudomain.mydomain.com. I want users that DON'T have the app installed to be redirected to our page in the App Store rather than hitting some nonexistent endpoint on our server (we don't have a webapp only a mobile backend).
I was thinking about doing something like this:
app.get('*', (request, response) => {
const domain = request.headers.host,
subdomain = domain.split('.');
if ( subdomain[0] === 'subdomain'){
response.redirect('www.linktoappstore.com');
}
...
});
However I don't want this to interfere with Universal Linking for people who DO have the app installed. Are Universal Link get requests sent to my server or does iOS intercept them before that happens?
This should work just fine.
When Universal Links are configured and your app is installed, the device does NOT hit the server before launching the app. This is because iOS caches the apple-app-site-association file when the app is initially installed, and if the URL being opened matches a path defined there, Universal Links kick in. In that situation, iOS completely bypasses any web request and immediately launches your app.
Of course, this means you can't track Universal Link traffic, which can become a major pain point. To work around this, you need something like Branch.io (full disclosure: I'm on the Branch team) to fill in the missing data.
Separately, if you're proxying the subdomain, make sure iOS doesn't see that as any sort of redirect. Otherwise the apple-app-site-association file won't be scraped at all (common Universal Link implementation issue).
I am implementing firebase dynamic links in my iOS app and I can already parse the link, redirect to AppStore etc. Now I want to distinguish the first run of the app, when user installs it from the dynamic link - I want to skip the intro and show him the content that is expected to be shown.
Is there some parameter, that I could catch in application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) so I could say that it was launched thru the dynamic link?
The method application(_:continueUserActivity:userActivity:restorationHandler:) is called later, so the intro is already launched.
This case is difficult to test, because you have to have your app published on the AppStore.
You actually don't need to have the app published in the App Store for this to work — clicking a link, closing the App Store, and then installing an app build through Xcode (or any other beta distribution platform like TestFlight or Fabric) has exactly the same effect.
According to the Firebase docs, the method that is called for the first install is openURL (no, this makes no sense to me either). The continueUserActivity method is for Universal Links, and is only used if the app is already installed when a link is opened.
I am not aware of any way to detect when the app is opening for the first time after install from a 'deferred' link, but you could simply route directly to the shared content (skipping the intro) whenever a deep link is present. If a deep link is NOT present, show the regular intro.
Alternative Option
You could check out Branch.io (full disclosure: I'm on the Branch team). Amongst other things, Branch is a great, free drop-in replacement for Firebase Dynamic Links with a ton of additional functionality. Here is an example of all the parameters Branch returns immediately in didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:
{
"branch_view_enabled" = 0;
"browser_fingerprint_id" = "<null>";
data = "{
\"+is_first_session\":false,
\"+clicked_branch_link\":true,
\"+match_guaranteed\":true,
\"$canonical_identifier\":\"room/OrangeOak\",
\"$exp_date\":0,
\"$identity_id\":\"308073965526600507\",
\"$og_title\":\"Orange Oak\",
\"$one_time_use\":false,
\"$publicly_indexable\":1,
\"room_name\":\"Orange Oak\", // this is a custom param, of which you may have an unlimited number
\"~channel\":\"pasteboard\",
\"~creation_source\":3,
\"~feature\":\"sharing\",
\"~id\":\"319180030632948530\",
\"+click_timestamp\":1477336707,
\"~referring_link\":\"https://branchmaps.app.link/qTLPNAJ0Jx\"
}";
"device_fingerprint_id" = 308073965409112574;
"identity_id" = 308073965526600507;
link = "https://branchmaps.app.link/?%24identity_id=308073965526600507";
"session_id" = 319180164046538734;
}
You can read more about these parameters on the Branch documentation here.
Hmm... as far as I'm aware, there's not really anything you can catch in the application:(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions) phase that would let you know the app was being opened by a dynamic link. You're going to have to wait until the continueUserActivity call, as you mentioned.
That said, FIRDynamicLinks.dynamicLinks()?.handleUniversalLink returns a boolean value nearly instantly, so you should be able to take advantage of that to short-circuit your into animation without it being a bad user experience. The callback itself might not happen until several milliseconds later, depending on if it's a shortened dynamic link (which requires a network call) or an expanded one (which doesn't).
Is there a way to check iOS to see if another app has been installed and then launched? If memory serves me this was not possible in early versions but has this been changed?
Doable, but tricky.
Launching installed apps, like the FB or Twitter apps, is done using the Custom URL Scheme. These can be used both in other apps as well as on web sites.
Here's an article about how to do this with your own app.
Seeing if the URL is there, though, can be tricky. A good example of an app that detects installed apps is Boxcar. The thing here is that Boxcar has advanced knowledge of the custom URL's. I'm fairly (99%) certain that there is a canOpenURL:, so knowing the custom scheme of the app you want to target ahead of time makes this simple to implement.
Here's a partial list of some of the more popular URL's you can check against.
There is a way to find out the custom app URL : https://www.amerhukic.com/finding-the-custom-url-scheme-of-an-ios-app
But if you want to scan for apps and deduce their URL's, it can't be done on a non-JB device.
Here's a blog post talking about how the folks at Bump handled the problem.
There is a script like the following.
<script type="text/javascript">
function startMyApp()
{
document.location = 'yourAppScheme://';
setTimeout( function()
{
if( confirm( 'You do not seem to have Your App installed, do you want to go download it now?'))
{
document.location = 'http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yourAppId';
}
}, 300);
}
</script>
Calling this script from the web (Try to start MyApp), you can determine if your app with scheme "yourAppScheme" is installed on the device or not.
The App will launch if it is installed on the device and "yourAppScheme" is registered in it.
If the app is not installed you can suggest the user to install this app from iTunes.
To check if an app is installed (e.g. Clear):
BOOL installed = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"clearapp://"]];
To open that app:
BOOL success = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"clearapp://"]];
Hides the error message if the app is not installed
At Branch we use a form of the code below--note that the iframe works on more browsers. Simply substitute in your app's URI and your App Store link.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload = function() {
// Deep link to your app goes here
document.getElementById("l").src = "my_app://";
setTimeout(function() {
// Link to the App Store should go here -- only fires if deep link fails
window.location = "https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my.app/id123456789?ls=1&mt=8";
}, 500);
};
</script>
<iframe id="l" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden"></iframe>
</body>
</html>
There's a second possibility that relies on cookies first and the javascript redirect only as a fallback. Here's the logic:
When a user without the app first taps on a link to your app, he or she is redirected straight to the App Store. This is accomplished by a link to your app actually being a dynamically-generated page on your servers with the redirect. You create a cookie and log a "digital fingerprint" of IP address, OS, OS version, etc. on your backend.
When the user installs the app and opens it, you collect and send another "digital fingerprint" to your backend. Now your backend knows the link is installed On any subsequent visits to links associated with your app, your servers make sure that the dynamically-generated redirect page leads to the app, not the App Store, based on the cookie sent up with the request.
This avoids the ugly redirect but involves a ton more work.
To my understanding, because of privacy issues, you can't see if an app is installed on the device. The way around this is to try and launch the app and if it doesn't launch to have the user hit the fall back url. To prevent the mobile safari error from occurring I found that placing it in an iframe helps resolve the issue.
Here's a snippet of code that I used.
<form name="mobileForm" action="mobile_landing.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="url" value="<?=$web_client_url?>">
<input type="hidden" name="mobile_app" value="<?=$mobile_app?>">
<input type="hidden" name="device_os" value="<?=$device_os?>">
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
var device_os = '<? echo $device_os; ?>';
if (device_os == 'ios'){
var now = new Date().valueOf();
setTimeout(function () {
if (new Date().valueOf() - now > 100)
return;
document.forms[0].submit(); }, 5);
var redirect = function (location) {
var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
iframe.setAttribute('src', location);
iframe.setAttribute('width', '1px');
iframe.setAttribute('height', '1px');
iframe.setAttribute('position', 'absolute');
iframe.setAttribute('top', '0');
iframe.setAttribute('left', '0');
document.documentElement.appendChild(iframe);
iframe.parentNode.removeChild(iframe);
iframe = null;
};
setTimeout(function(){
window.close()
}, 150 );
redirect("AppScheme");
I struggled with this recently, and here is the solution I came up with. Notice that there is still no surefire way to detect whether the app launched or not.
I serve a page from my server which redirects to an iPhone-specific variant upon detecting the User-Agent. Links to that page can only be shared via email / SMS or Facebook.
The page renders a minimal version of the referenced document, but then automatically tries to open the app as soon as it loads, using a hidden <iframe> (AJAX always fails in this situation -- you can't use jQuery or XMLHttpRequest for this).
If the URL scheme is registered, the app will open and the user will be able to do everything they need. Either way, the page displays a message like this at the bottom: "Did the app launch? If not, you probably haven't installed it yet .... " with a link to the store.
Specifically, I would like to share granular page content via triggering the iOS share sheet with in-page buttons.
In my webapp page, I have a table of downloadable PDFs. I would like to be able to add a column called "Share" into the table, so that a button could be tapped to share the URL to that document, without having to open the document itself and share from there.
In order to do this, I assume I would need to customise this triggered share sheet to share a different URL to the one that is showing in mobile safari's address bar.
Is this possible using javascript, or alternative URLs in a meta tag maybe? I don't expect URL scheme to be a solution, as it is concerned with sending data to another application.
Addendum 6/2020 It is possible since iOS 12.4, it works great.
It will be supported in Safari iOS V12.2. The beta of V12.2 already has it.
There's a good article by Maximiliano Firtman on a number of new features that will be possible in the new version.
Not currently on ios but a new w3c spec is on the way called web share api. Currently only available in chrome for android behind a origin trail.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/10/navigator-share
Yes, via the Web Share API
per the w3 docs:
shareButton.addEventListener("click", async () => {
try {
await navigator.share({ title: "Example Page", url: "" });
console.log("Data was shared successfully");
} catch (err) {
console.error("Share failed:", err.message);
}
});
Great article by Joe Medley on web.dev: Integrate with the OS sharing UI with the Web Share API
We are using Google Analytics to track events, but events don't appear to track 100% of the time. Sometimes they track, and sometimes they don't. We're not exceeding quota limits per session (at most we have 20 events per session). That shouldn't be the issue.
The tracking fails to work consistently on our normal website as well as our HTML5 mobile app version, though it's far less reliable with the HTML5 mobile app version.
Code:
var share_url = 'http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=';
// Log in GA
_gaq.push( ['_trackEvent', 'Share Twitter', ''] );
// Open URL in browser
open_external( share_url + encodeURIComponent( msg ) );
function open_external( url ) {
window.open( url + '#phonegap=external' );
}
_gaq.push( ['_trackEvent', 'Share Twitter', ''] );
This won't do anything.
For _trackEvent, the third argument (where you pass an empty string) is required. It's the 'Action' parameter. But an empty string is falsey, so it just fails silently.
Pass any value there, and it'll work.
Is this a reduced case? You shouldn't be seeing any events with that code.
Are you positive that you waited long enough for the data to be processed by Google? Especially since some tracking seems to be working.
I had the same behaviour (in a mobile app btw) but after waiting for more than a day it still came through. This still occurs on a daily basis... Hope this is the case for you too.
I'm not exactly sure what your problem can be, so I will throw some idea.
Most of them are obvious but it might help.
On your website:
Are you sure your embed the Google Analytics code snippet on every page who required tracking?
Load Google analytics from the asynchronous way.
On Google analytics check on Real time > Overview. As full report are delayed from few hours.
If you url is something like httq://localhost/ then your need to add the javascript code _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'none']); please read this post
It can't work with file:// url
(Probably not) Check if you can download the JavaScript from Google Analytics. Maybe your proxy block Google analytics tracking ?
In your application:
You are using embedded HTML 5 page within your app. So the way your open a page is using file://PATH_TO_MY_DIR/index.html as it's on your hard drive you can't send data to Google analytics.
As you are probably using PhoneGap, you need to "jump out" of your HTML page into native Objective-c code and send the event from your Objective-C code. Read Google Analytics and PhoneGap and this google group thread
Hope it help.
The problem is third parameter in:
_gaq.push( ['_trackEvent', 'Share Twitter', ''] );
The 2nd element of the array should be the category and the 3rd should be the action. For example:
_gaq.push( ['_trackEvent', 'Share', 'Twitter'] );
You can verify this yourself by pasting each of the above into your developer console (F12 in Chrome, Ctrl-Shift-K in Firefox) and watching the network traffic.
Reference:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/methods/gaJSApiEventTracking