# Linking to our Apps

## Aims

1. Mobile users should be made aware the native apps exist & prompted to download
1. If people have the app, links should open on app
1. Links should log them in if a magic link if opened on native app
1. **Question:** Should links go *directly* to the App Store if users ***don't*** have the app?
- I think this is actually an unwanted journey - adds an extra step in people's journey using this app and how do they then get to the website if they don't want to install? Also would break magic links potentially

## Solutions

- Modify links to check the platform and if the app is installed, before users click on them
- **Pros**: very customisable, can send users whereever we like depending on the link, can acheive any user journey we want (send them to app, send them to app store, send them whereever)
- **Cons**: A lot more repeatable code, very fragile across the codebase, can only do this on links we own. Unclear how this would even work for email links (probably not at all)
- **Solves 1 & 2 & 4 but maybe not 3**
- Add [deep links](https://capacitorjs.com/docs/guides/deep-links) to our apps
- **Pros**: Links are all dealt with at the destination - any link to our site from anywhere would be redirected to open the app if the user has it
- **Cons**: Only one user journey: if they have the app, open it, if not, open the website. Would not be able to send to app store. This sort of thing will be a bit fiddly to implement and test as it is capacitor/dev op stuff, but capacitor has a fairly in depth guide
- **Solves 2 & 3 but not 1 or 4**

- Add smart banners probably similarly in approach to [this blog post](https://medium.com/umamitech-blog/smart-app-banners-for-ios-and-android-a-handmade-solution-7785d6bca205)
- **Pros**: Again, dealt with at the destination app. appears very simple to implement on iOS safari
- **Cons**: Doesn't directly open the app, just suggests people either download the app if they don't have it, or open link in app if they do. Looks fiddly to implement on android/chrome
- **Solves 1 and 4 pretty much**

- Advertise apps on our emails
- Just a footer generic links to the app stores
- **Solves 1**

## Verdict:

Drop aim 4 in terms of linking directly to app store(smart banner is a better user experience IMO).

Don't implement the first solution listed as it is very fragile and hard to maintain and probably won't work with magic links

Implement the other solutions to achieve all of the the aims in their modular way. Good seperation of interests (links opening the app vs. app awareness):

- Links open app: Solved by deep-links
- App awareness: Solved by banner & email footer