Universal link in iOS 8?

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Created Jun ’15

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I watched the WWDC videos related to the improvements to search and deep linking. In the "Seamless Linking to your App" video he talked about how to set up the app and related web server to to support "Universal Links". What wasn't totally clear to me was whether or not Universal Links work with iOS 8 or only iOS 9. When he talked about signing the apple-app-site-association file, he stated that it only needed to be signed for use with iOS 8. Just to be clear, do Universal Links work with iOS 8, right now???

Here is the use case I care about.

- An email is opened on an iOS 8 device with a normal https url to the a web site (a web deep link).

- The user taps on the link

- The associated app is opened and handed the url to be processed via func application(application: UIApplication, continueUserActivity userActivity: NSUserActivity, restorationHandler: ([AnyObject]!) -> Void) -> Bool

Specifically: Email -> App

- not Email -> Safari

- nor Email -> Safari -> App

Thanks!

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Answer 1

Documentation Engineer OP

Apple

Jun ’15

Universal links are an iOS 9 feature. The apple-app-site-association file is used on iOS 8 for other purposes, namely for doing cross-device web-to-native handoff and shared web credentials. So your scenario of the user tapping an https link and going to a native app on the same device is not something that would work in iOS 8. Hope that helps clear up any confusion.

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