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Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

(peabee.substack.com)
1192 points gniting | 3 comments | 29 Mar 25 21:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.87s | source
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andsoitis ◴[30 Mar 25 00:11 UTC] No.43519910[source]▶
> everyone knows all the alls on your phone

On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.

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neither_color ◴[30 Mar 25 03:25 UTC] No.43521020[source]▶
Speaking of iPhone, Im curious about something. On occasion, I log into the [former] bird app using the web app because it's enough to check up on some key follows.

Recently, they released a major update to their LLM feature and I installed the app to check it out. While I had the app installed, every time I checked the mobile website there was a large banner directing me to go to the app. Ad blockers and distraction blockers would not get rid of it. When I deleted the app again, it was gone. What gives? Why does the mobile website know whether I have the app installed? How come content+distraction blockers are enough to block all reminders to use the app when it's not installed, but are irrevocable if I have the app installed?

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1. js2 ◴[30 Mar 25 03:32 UTC] No.43521060[source]▶
Apple calls these Smart App Banners. Webkit cooperates with iOS to present them according to a meta tag in the page:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting-a...

You can get rid of them with the Unsmartifier extension.

https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/q55753/unsmartifier_...

The StopTheMadness extension can also remove them (among many other things... this extension is a must have for me):

https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/support-ios.html

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2. hnburnsy ◴[30 Mar 25 04:07 UTC] No.43521248[source]▶
>Apple calls these Smart App Banners. Webkit cooperates with iOS to present them according to a meta tag in the page

JFC. Are they disabled if you ask for the desktop site?

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3. uni_baconcat ◴[30 Mar 25 05:24 UTC] No.43521584[source]▶
I think it won’t. I tried open X.com desktop version on iPad, Safari still showed “open with X app”.