Chrome Android 44+ introduces a new "related apps" banner

Native App install banners landed in Chrome 44 Beta for Android and will be soon available in the stable version. Native App banners are a new powerful feature that let users to install and switch to your native app, without leaving the browser.

Criteria for activation

The criteria for Native App banner activation are:

1. You have a web app manifest file
2. Your site is served over HTTPS
3. The user has visited your site twice over two separate days during the course of two weeks
4. The app has not been installed yet

To test the banner, without waiting the next day (due to the criteria #3), you can enable chrome://flags/#bypass-app-banner-engagement-checks .

Manifest

The manifest should defines at least a short_name, a 144x144 png icon, prefer_related_applications and related_applications. Check out the manifest we use at Spreaker or the following example:

{
    "display": "browser",
    "name": "Spreaker",
    "short_name": "Spreaker",
    "icons": [ ... ],
    "prefer_related_applications": true,
    "related_applications": [{
        "platform": "play",
        "id": "com.spreaker.android"
    }]
}

The manifest file must be linked in your web pages using the <link> tag. Ie:

<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.webmanifest" />

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