CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Robert Schiemann
Robert Schiemann

Reputation: 21

How does Quettra Portrait get the list of installed apps on non-jailbroken iOS devices?

According to the Quettra Portrait for iOS Privacy Policy they manage to get a list of installed apps on iOS. What's more, they're able to do this from an App Store approved app on non-jailbroken devices. Every Google/StackOverflow search I've done on the matter suggests that this is impossible, but Quettra is somehow able to do it without raising the ire of Apple. Any ideas?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 91

Answers (1)

swapnilagarwal
swapnilagarwal

Reputation: 1174

Most of the apps register a unique URL for deep linking purpose.

iOS has method canOpenURL: which tells you if a particular app is present or not on a user's device.

For example

facebook has fb://

Netflix has nflx://

Tripadvisor has tripadvisor://

Quettra has the list of these urls and makes several call to identify if a particular app is installed or not. By doing so, Quettra was able to establish interests of a user.

Earlier an app could make as many calls to canOpenURL: with different url parameters. Because companies were abusing this feature against user privacy interest, Apple has restricted 100 unique urls for canOpenURL:

Upvotes: 0

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