Facebook’s New App Links Initiative Makes It Easier To Share Information Between Apps
by Brent Dirks
April 30, 2014
Facebook has just announced an interesting free and open-source initiative to make linking apps a lot easier. App Links is designed to take care of a frequent problem many of us run into while using mobile devices.
Along with controlling what will happen when a user clicks on mobile device content, the initiative will automatically load a linked app instead of the Web version, if installed on the device.
The final product will look very much like what happens with Google’s iOS apps. For example, clicking on a Web link in Gmail will open the page directly in Chrome.
Here’s a quick video that describes more about how App Links works. Click here if you can’t see it.
App Links is available to anyone and comes with reference SDKs for developers. Facebook has designed it to work with all major mobile platforms.
Some of the supporters of the initiative include Dropbox, Spotify, Pinterest, Benmo, Flixster, Hulu, Parse, and Quip. Facebook is planning to build support for App Links into its slate of apps in the future.
More information about App Links can be found on its official site here.
For other recent news, see: Apple Begins Shipping Sapphire Glass For The iPhone 6 To China, Gameloft Shares New Details On Modern Combat 5, and Report: Apple’s Long-Rumored iWatch Has Entered Production In Small Quantities.
