Universal link in iOS 8?

Question

I watched the WWDC videos related to the improvements to search and deep linking. In the "Seamless Linking to your App" video the speaker 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's 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!

Answer 1

According to What's New in iOS 9, universal links require iOS 9. Presumably the signing requirement requirement goes back to iOS 8 because, as that doc notes, universal links are built on the same trust basis as Handoff between native apps and websites, which is an iOS 8 feature. That way you can deploy your app back to iOS 8 (and support web <-> app Handoff), but get universal link support only for your clients that are on iOS 9.

For iOS 8 and earlier, you can fall back to App Banners.