What you need to know
- One of the key highlights of the latest Android 12 Developer Preview is improved web linking.
- Verified links will now open directly in the associated app.
- You'll no longer see the "open with" dialog for verified links.
Yesterday, Google released the final Android 12 developer preview, bringing a ton of new user-facing changes. One of the most significant changes is the improved web linking, which gets rid of the "open with" dialog for verified links.
Instead of asking you to choose an app to open a verified link with, each app will now have a list of verified links that they will be able to open automatically. You'll be able to view the list of verified links that an app can open by heading over to its app info page. In case you don't want an app to open verified links automatically, you can disable the behavior with the help of the new "open supported links" toggle in the "Open by default" section in the app info page.
Dave Burke, VP of Engineering at Google, explained the improvements in a blog post:
In Android 12 we're making some changes to help users get to their content faster and more seamlessly. First, we've changed the default handling of links that aren't verified through Android App Links or manually approved for links by the user. Now the OS will directly open them in the default browser, rather than showing a chooser dialog. To make it easier for users to approve your app for links, we've added a new Intent that takes them to "Open by default" in Settings. If you want to ensure that only your app can handle links from your domain, you can use App Links.
Users will also be able to manually add links that they want an app to open automatically using the "add link" option below the "open supported links" toggle. However, the option is greyed out on Developer Preview 3 and isn't functional. While the first Android 12 public beta is expected to drop sometime next month, it will be limited to the best Android phones from Google and a few OEMs.
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