Inter-App Communication In iOS Needs Improving

Google is having to resort to using URL schemes to allow third-parties to detect whether Chrome is installed on a user’s iOS device. This is such a hack-job it is ridiculous. App developers should not have to perform string manipulation to open in a particular browser.

This should be an OS-wide setting, such that — to a developer — the API is transparent and abstracted. Any call to [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:URL] would automatically trigger the user’s chosen browser.

It should not require app developers to hard-code support for every browser, as it does today.