How to share a link from the app using other applications - ios

I want to share a link from my app using other applications installed on my iPhone such as Gmail, Facebook, DropBox, WhatsApp etc. In android there is a straight way to do so, just fire an intent and it automatically shows the installed apps through which we can share whatever we want. Is there any such way in iPhone ?
Thanks!

On iOS , app is more separated from each other. The only way to pass data from one app to other is using the URL mechanism. As one example, an app register url scheme "open-me://",you invoked openURL with "open-me://my-link" then that app will launched. That app will define the detail of the URL so it could understand the content.Continue with the example we are using, the text you passed could be either "open-me://A?data=my-link" or "open-me://A?message=my-link". So there are no general solution for all apps.Typically third party app will provide a SDK to make these things easy.
If you don't mind using a kind of large third party library, ShareKit is a good choice. It supports quite some apps.
If you want to know more about this topic,for example sharing files between app. You could start from reading the class reference of UIDocumentInteractionController.This UI component will show a list of app installed on your device which support the URL scheme.

Related

How to read content of an iOS app from another app?

I am stuck somewhere. My client wants me to develop an application that has a dedicated icon over other applications as well. For example – If I have an ecommerce application opened in my iPhone, there should be an icon over that application through which I can take screenshot and add the image to my application. I know this is possible in android, but is it possible in iOS as well, if yes then how?? Also refer the image attached for more clarification.
Share data between two applications
Historically, the iPhone has tried to prevent data sharing between apps. The idea was that if you couldn't get at another app's data, you couldn't do anything bad to that app.
In recent releases of IOS, they've loosened that up a bit. For example, the iOS programming guide now has a section on passing data between apps by having one app claim a certain URL prefix, and then having other apps reference that URL. So, perhaps you set your event app to answer "event://" URLs the same way that a webserver answers for "http://" URLs.
Have a peek under "Implementing Custom URL Schemes".

How to call out to another app within an app - iOS

We use an LMS calles Canvas by instructure. Our students access the LMS via the iOS app, however we would like to be able to call out from this app to another app (e-book reader).
We just want to be able to select a link which will redirect us to the app.
We have a coder in our staff, and we would really appreciate any advise on how to achieve the above.
You can communicate with URL Schemes between apps Apple Inter-App Communication
And here is Tutorial explaining URL Schemes implementation.
If you have access to the e-book reader app's codebase, this is simple to achieve by specifying a URL Scheme this app may respond to (or, alternatively, if you happen to know what URL Schemes this app supports). Then it will be as simple as calling out a URL of a corresponding format from within the iOS app your students use.
Alternatively, if your app provides access to the documents of some sort, you could look into UIDocumentInteractionController that can add "Open in..." functionality to your app, allowing app users to open a document in an arbitrary app that supports this file format.

Inter-App Communication to annotate documents in iOS

I have a customer with an Android app which he wants to be built in iOS. The android app has a feature in which the user can annotate documents. To achieve this the Parent app passes control to a third party Document annotation app, say Adobe reader for example where user annotates the documents and once he is done the control as well as the document is passed back to the Parent app. Is there any way i can achieve the same in iOS i.e pass control to a third party app to annotate documents from within my iOS App.
I have read about URL schemes but that requires the third party app to make changes in their code which i dnt think anybody will agree to. So is there any other way?
I researched all sorts of stuff. So finally the answer is NO.This can't be done in iOS without the third party app making changes in their Appdelegate file to handle the passed URL through URL schemes.

Application inside another application in iOS

How do you import or display an application inside another application?
It is like, it will be a part of the app where you can use it's functionalities. Maybe in full screen or not in full screen. My thoughts are these are web based and is being opened in a UIWebView to use the functionalities.
Extensions? It's more like "piggybacking".
Here's an example:
https://hub.united.com/en-us/news/web/pages/uber-on-the-united-app.aspx
I'll post an answer regrouping my answer and also #Popeye one that seems valid too.
There may be a few ways to do it, each ones of them may act differently.
The other app offers a public SDK/API/WebServices
As an example, I'll take FaceBook API, that allow you to login giving you a UIViewController (that you can customise), and allowing you to ask for some data through their WebServices (like who are the friends, etc.). You're still inside your app.
The other app offers you a private SDK/API/WebServices
Same as the other one, but it more like a parternship. You're still inside your app.
URL Schemes
The other app gives you a few way to interact with it. They check if the app is installed, and launch it with some parameters, or if not, they may redirect it to the app in the Store, their website, etc. More info about URL Schemes from Apple Doc. You have to check their documentaion to know how to interact with it.

iOS Conversion / installation Tracking

Objective: i want to fetch my custom parameter(referrer) from iTunes link upon installation of my application in device.
iTunes links look somethings like this:
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/complete-gym-guide-lite/id550449574?mt=8
If i append my parameter say(&referrer=xyz)at the end and i open this url in ios safari browser then it will prompt to download the application.
Confusion: will app store send my parameter(referrer) to my application on launch so that i can fetch it in my application and use it.
In case of Android play store link look like this: http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=&referrer=guid%3D%guid%
As you can see referrer parameter at the end of url. Once app is installed in device then play store will send this parameter to app using INSTALL_REFERRER broadcast receiver. We can use this parameter.
What i tried OR Other people doing for conversion tracking: Other people are simply sending static data to their server at the first time opening of app and maintain a flag in NSDefault to make sure that app does not send same data again. I can also do the same as well as alternate ways suggested in below links but i want to do something with custom parameter.
I have already seen below links:
iOS - track which ad campaigns my installs are coming from
Tracking iOS installs from multiple marketing sources
Please help me out.
As #Aditya said, for now, Apple is not sending any referrer (or params) from iTunes to installation.
The only way you have it's to use a third party sdk to get your installations.
I have been working on a own sdk to get this but the way to get any info it's really hard and not really confident to use it. So endly we used some third party which are using many techniques to getting this (as fingerprint data, App2App methods, etc...)
I have tested appsflyer sdk and facebook sdk, they work as expected, use this or any else you prefer.
Hope this helps

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