4 ms·

This is the benign explanation I was looking for. It's a clever hack for providing a good user experience for the person who's receiving remote support, who can

This is the benign explanation I was looking for. It's a clever hack for providing a good user experience for the person who's receiving remote support, who can't be assumed to be computer-savvy. Of course, it would be better still if there was a standard way of setting up specific URL patterns under specific domains to automatically launch an associated desktop app if that app is installed. iOS can already do this through the "/.well-known/apple-app-site-association" URL on the domain. It's why Zoom and Teams links, when opened on an iOS device, always go straight into the native app once that app is installed. Edit to add: BTW, the file at the well-known Apple path also gives me a way of detecting a Zoom invite URL in one of my own products, even though Zoom URLs can have custom domains.

ayewo 4y ago
Interesting. Based on your comment, I did a quick check and only Zoom gives a valid response. The parent domain for Microsoft Teams don't seem to respect the convention. https://zoom.us/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://zoom.us/.well-known/apple-app-site-association - 200 OK https://www.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://www.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-associa... - 404 Not Found
- acous 4y ago
  https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-assoc...
- vel0city 4y ago
  www.microsoft.com is a pretty generic page. Microsoft makes a lot of applications other than Teams. Should it open Onedrive? Excel? OneNote? Xbox? If you go to the actual Teams site, it does have the apple-app-site-association link. https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-assoc...
  - ayewo 4y ago
    Heh, I've never used teams before so when I did a few searches I got sent to www.microsoft.com and office.com. None of the links on page 1 and 2 of the SERP led to teams.microsoft.com.
    - mwcampbell 4y ago
      Not surprising; teams.microsoft.com goes straight to a login page, so you wouldn't know that's the domain unless you use the product.
WorldMaker 4y ago
> Of course, it would be better still if there was a standard way of setting up specific URL patterns under specific domains to automatically launch an associated desktop app if that app is installed. The "PWA" standard for "/.well-known/apple-app-site-association" is "related_applications" [0] in the Web App Manifest standard and specifically here where "prefer_related_applications" [1] is set to true. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/related_applications https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/relate... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/prefer_related_applications https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/prefer...

ayewo 4y ago

Interesting. Based on your comment, I did a quick check and only Zoom gives a valid response. The parent domain for Microsoft Teams don't seem to respect the convention. https://zoom.us/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://zoom.us/.well-known/apple-app-site-association - 200 OK https://www.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://www.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-associa... - 404 Not Found

acous 4y ago
https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-assoc...
vel0city 4y ago
www.microsoft.com is a pretty generic page. Microsoft makes a lot of applications other than Teams. Should it open Onedrive? Excel? OneNote? Xbox? If you go to the actual Teams site, it does have the apple-app-site-association link. https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association https://teams.microsoft.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-assoc...
- ayewo 4y ago
  Heh, I've never used teams before so when I did a few searches I got sent to www.microsoft.com and office.com. None of the links on page 1 and 2 of the SERP led to teams.microsoft.com.
  - mwcampbell 4y ago
    Not surprising; teams.microsoft.com goes straight to a login page, so you wouldn't know that's the domain unless you use the product.

WorldMaker 4y ago

> Of course, it would be better still if there was a standard way of setting up specific URL patterns under specific domains to automatically launch an associated desktop app if that app is installed. The "PWA" standard for "/.well-known/apple-app-site-association" is "related_applications" [0] in the Web App Manifest standard and specifically here where "prefer_related_applications" [1] is set to true. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/related_applications https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/relate... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/prefer_related_applications https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/prefer...