QR codes that route to the appropriate app store

 (matthuggins.com)

20 points | by matthuggins 12 hours ago ago

9 comments

  • classictraffic 10 hours ago ago

    I agree with the other commenters that this is a pretty simple engineering problem, but I still enjoyed reading about edge cases the author worked to address (they could have taken the easy road with this but tried not to). I forgot that Safari on iPad doesn't specify iPad in user agent headers

  • Tiberium 11 hours ago ago

    Is this a whole blog post for a simple backend that just routes based on the User-Agent?

    [-]
  • m4tthumphrey 11 hours ago ago

    Err wut... redirecting based on user agents?

  • elendilm 10 hours ago ago

    For our apps Slyp and SlypBusiness, we had the same QR code for each app open Playstore/Appstore page of the app depending on the phone. Hopefully, we will start rolling out Slyp next week.

    Just have a branded link (like https://slyp.app/Slyp or https://slyp.app/SlypBusiness) to the official web page and have the js in that page auto-redirect and open the original Playstore/Appstore page.

    And yes, we used userAgent for identifying the platform.

    If anyone is interested, here is the code. May not cover all edge cases but works for our usecase. The code was wrung together in a hurry a year ago.

        window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => {
        let app = 'Slyp'

        var userAgent = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
        if (userAgent.indexOf('android') > -1) {
          window.location.href = `https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ndcurve.${app}`;
        } else if (userAgent.indexOf('iphone') > -1 || userAgent.indexOf('ipod') > -1 || userAgent.indexOf('ipad') > -1 || userAgent.indexOf('mac') > -1) {
              if (app === "Slyp")
                window.location.href = 'https://apps.apple.com/app/<app_id>';
              else if (app === "SlypBusiness")
                window.location.href = 'https://apps.apple.com/app/<app_id>';
              else
                window.location.href = 'https://slyp.app';
        } else {
          window.location.href = `https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ndcurve.${app}`;
        }
    });
  • arccy 11 hours ago ago

    it's just a server side redirect based on the user agent headers

  • Svoka 11 hours ago ago

    I thought it was something clever, but it shows as URL in QR Scanner, not an APP, which opens browser after activating it, then user would have to confirm redirect to App Store on empty page

    TL;DR: it is HTTP redirect based on User-Agent header

  • MengerSponge 10 hours ago ago

    I hate QR codes. I don't trust them.