Applications need to be able to wildcard Associated Domains for Universal Links support

Originator:bryan
Number:rdar://21387804 Date Originated:15-Jun-2015 03:38 PM
Status:Open Resolved:
Product:iOS SDK Product Version:9.0
Classification:UI/Usability Reproducible:Always
 
Summary:
The new “universal links” system allows applications to specify “associated domains,” domains whose links the application can intercept. These domains look as follows; please note that a separate entry is required for each specific subdomain:

applinks:tumblr.com
applinks:www.tumblr.com

Tumblr uses a different subdomain for each user’s blogs, e.g. my blog can be found at “http://bryan.tumblr.com”

In order to open blogs links in the native Tumblr app, we would need to be able to specify a wildcarded associated domain as follows:

applinks:*.tumblr.com

Steps to Reproduce:
Try using an asterisk to specify a wildcarded associated domain (e.g. “*.tumblr.com”) for universal links.

Expected Results:
Links to any subdomain under the domain (e.g. “bryan.tumblr.com”) would be routed to the third-party application.

Actual Results:
Links to subdomains open in Safari.

Regression:

Notes:

Comments

Same issue still.

The original ticket was filed in 2015 and the same issue still exists today with 0 updates. Apple, please provide a workaround for us; subdomain support is very important to us, the B2B and B2C app development community.

By schen at March 1, 2017, 10:23 p.m. (reply...)

Same issue here. It doesn't clear from the docs where the "apple-app-site-association" file is downloaded from in urls with wildcard subdomains. adding both "*.example.com" and "example.com" and putting the file in the root of "example.com" doesn't work also.

Really hope they'll fix it soon.

By pollack.ariel at March 31, 2016, 11:03 a.m. (reply...)

Interestingly, it seems that originally Apple intended to support wildcard domain names:

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/AppSearch/UniversalLinks.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40016308-CH12-SW1

" You can use the asterisk character * as a wildcard to match variations of an associated domain. Domain matching is based on the longest substring in the applinks entries. For example, if you specify the entries applinks:*.mywebsite.com and applinks:.users.mywebsite.com, matching for the domain emily.users.mywebsite.com is performed against the longer .users.mywebsite.com entry. Note that an entry for .mywebsite.com does not match mywebsite.com because of the period after the asterisk. To enable matching for both .mywebsite.com and mywebsite.com, you need to provide a separate applinks entry for each. "

By mlassau at March 4, 2016, 4:45 a.m. (reply...)

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