How open link in safari mobile app from webview

Question

There are many topics of this here, but they all need native code interaction to work.

In my case, it is necessary to be able to do it directly from the url, without any interaction with my mobile app.

I tried:

<a href="safari://google.com" target="_blank">Open Google in Safari</a>

and

<a href="webkit://google.com" target="_blank">Open</a>

and based in this post.

<script>
    $(document).on('click', 'a[target="_blank"]', function (ev) {
      var url;

      ev.preventDefault();
      url = $(this).attr('href');
      window.open(url, '_system');
    });
  </script>

but nothing works.

Anyone have any idea how to fix this?

Answer 1

There is a trick. We know iOS Safari have these available URL Schemes:

(HTTP) — http://websiteurl (HTTPS) — https://websiteurl x-web-search:// (FTP) — ftp://locationtofileonftpserver

If you use Click here or window.open("http://somewebsite"). It always use current browser to open url.

x-web-search://?[keyword] - It will switch into Safari app but search for the keyword

Luckily we still have ftp:// left. It will switch to Safari app. But first you need to setup a public folder in your hosting & create a bridge html file to redirect user back to http:

ftp://{youripaddress}/bridge.html

window.open("https://yoururl", "_self");

Now you can open your website in the default Safari app from any browsers.

The original answer is here: JS - Mobile - Open Safari from any browser

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Update (2021-01): Apple seems to fix this on iOS, this is no longer work!