Universal Links for Android and iOS
Article Summary
Konstantin Yakushev from Bumble Tech reveals the brutal truth about universal links: Apple and Google's 'simple' solution is riddled with undocumented bugs that break user experience in shocking ways.
This deep dive from Badoo's engineering team chronicles their battle to implement universal links across iOS and Android. What should have been straightforward turned into a multi-year debugging nightmare involving SafariViewController failures, mysterious redirect issues, and a button that permanently breaks deep links.
Key Takeaways
- Redirects to universal links fail completely on iOS (undocumented behavior)
- SafariViewController blocks all universal links, requiring dual-domain hack
- Single iOS button permanently disables deep links with no developer fix
- Facebook ignores universal links entirely, requires proprietary App Links format
- Version control impossible: apple-app-site-association affects all app versions simultaneously
Critical Insight
Universal links require custom URL minifiers, alternative domains, fingerprinting services, and extensive workarounds to achieve basic functionality that Apple and Google claim works out of the box.
