The document discusses Apple's search APIs and how they enable apps to provide rich content to Spotlight, Siri and Safari search results. It covers three APIs - NSUserActivity, App Search and CoreSpotlight - that allow indexing app content and activities to make them discoverable in searches. The document also discusses how to index web content to drive traffic to mobile apps and optimize search results through techniques like keywords, structured data and fast deep linking to improve an app's relevance ranking.

1. Search APIs & Universal
Links
Mercari Inc.
@kitasuke

2. About me

3. Mercari

4. My works
→ Cardio -Simple HealthKit wrapper for workout app
in watchOS 2-
→ PagingMenuController -Paging view controller
with customizable menu-
→ GoogleMaterialIconFont -Google Material Design
Icons for Swift and ObjC-

5. My future talks
→ Introducing new features for watchOS 2
@MOSA software meeting

6. Search API

7. Completely New Search
Experience

8. App results appear in
Spotlight and Safari even
app not installed

10. Rich contents with
powerful action

12. Universal and Seamless
experience

14. How it works

15. Index contents via Search
APIs

16. What to index?

17. Index Architecture

18. On-Device index

19. Apple's cloud index

20. Let's see in-depth
features!

21. 3 Search APIs

23. NSUserActivity

24. App Search
→ Activities can be designated as searchable
→ Add indexable metadata
→ Results in Spotlight and Safari
→ Revisit activity on Search selection

25. Enable Capabilities
var eligibleForHandoff: Bool
var eligibleForSearch: Bool
var eligibleForPublicIndexing: Bool

26. Provide Attributes and Keywords
var title: String?
var keywords: Set<String>
var contentAttributeSet: CSSearchableItemAttributeSet?
var expirationDate: NSDate

27. Restoring on the Web
var webpageURL: NSURL?

28. Create Activity
var activity: NSUserActivity = NSUserActivity(activityType: "com.example")
activity.title = "Baked Potato Chips"
activity.userInfo = ["id": "http://www.example.com/recipe/111"]
activity.eligibleForSearch = true
activity.eligibleForPublicIndexing = true
activity.becomeCurrent()

30. Continue Activity
func application(UIApplication,
continueUserActivity userActivity: NSUserActivity,
restorationHandler: [AnyObject]? -> Void) -> Bool {
if userActivity.activityType == "com.example" {
// Restore state for userActivity and userInfo
}
return true
}

31. Public Indexing
→ Activities can be designated as public
→ Multiple users engage with device results
→ Popular public results available to other users
→ Results in Search and Safari (if URL included)

32. Public vs Private
→ Designated "public" if searchable activity fields
are solely public
→ Provisions to prevent user-specific activities from
being indexed

33. Additional Benefits

34. Handoff

35. Siri suggestions

36. CoreSpotlight

37. CoreSpotlight
→ For any app content
→ Methods to add, update and delete items
→ Used by Messages, Mail, Calendar and Notes

39. Create item
// Create attributeSet and populate with metadata
let attributeSet = CSSearchableItemAttributeSet(itemContentType: kUTTypeImage as String)
attributeSet.title = "Haleakala Sunrise"
attributeSet.contentDescription = "May 12, 2015 Maui, Hawaii"
// Create item with unique identifier, domainIdentifier used to group items
let item = CSSearchableItem(UniqueIdentifier: "1",
domainIdentifier: "album-1",
attributeSet: attributeSet)

40. Index item
// Index item
CSSearchableIndex.defaultSearchableIndex().indexSearchableItems([item]) { error in
if error != nil {
print("Item indexed!")
}
}

41. Restore
// Application delegate called when CoreSpotlight result is tapped
func application(UIApplication,
continueUserActivity userActivity: NSUserActivity,
restorationHandler: [AnyObject]? -> Void) -> Bool {
if userActivity.activityType == CSSearchableItemActionType {
let uniqueIdentifier = userActivity.userInfo?
[CSSearchableItemActivityIdentifier] as? String
// Use 'uniqueIdentifier'
}
return true
}

42. Update
// Same method as adding item to index
func indexSearchableItems(items: [CSSearchableItem],
completionHandler: ((NSError?) -> Void)?)

43. Delete
// Identifiers
func deleteSearchableItemsWithIdentifiers(identifiers: [String],
completionHandler: ((NSError?) -> Void)?)
identifiers = ["1", "4", "5"]

44. Delete
// DomainIdentifier
func deleteSearchableItemsWithDomainIdentifiers(DomainIdentifiers: [String],
completionHandler: ((NSError?) -> Void)?)
domainIdentifiers = ["domain-2"]

45. Delete
// All
func deleteAllSearchableItemsWithCompletionHandler(completionHandler: ((NSError?) -> Void)?)

46. Web Markup

47. Indexing Web Content
→ The content driving your app may live on the web,
not locally inside the app
→ Deep linked pages from your app's website are
indexed for app search

48. Applebot finds deep links
from the web

50. Enabling app search
1. Allow Apple to discover and index your app's
website
2. Ensure your app's website contains markup for
mobile deep links
3. Enable deep link handling for your app
4. Add markup for structured data (optional, but
highly recommended)

52. Smart App Banners
if app is not installed, Safari prompts the user
<meta name="myApp"
content="app-id=123,
app-argument=https://example.com/about
affiliate-date=optionalAffiliateData">
app-argument is passed to
application(_:openURL:sourceApplication:annotation:), and is
also used to index your app

53. Deep Linking
→ Universal link
https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2014/?
include=101#101
→ Custom URL scheme
apple://wwdc/2014/?include=101#101

54. Universal links advantages
→ Unique
→ Secure
→ Flexible
→ Work seamlessly across app and website

55. Support Universal Link in your server
→ Create your apple-app-site-association file
→ Generate an SSL certification
→ Sign your file
→ Upload to your server

56. Support Universal Link in your app
func application(application: UIApplication,
continueUserActivity userActivity: NSUserActivity,
restorationHandler: ([AnyObject]!) -> Void) -> Bool
var webpageURL: NSURL?
var activityType: String
let NSUserActivityTypeBrowsingWeb: String
class NSURLComponents: NSObject

57. Configure your associated domains

58. Other deep link schemes
Twitter Cards
<meta name="twitter:app:name:iphone" content="myAppName">
<meta name="twitter:app:id:iphone" content="myAppID">
<meta name="twitter:app:url:iphone" content="myURL">
Facebook's App Links
<meta name="al:ios:app_name" content="myAppName">
<meta name="al:ios:app_store_id" content="myAppID">
<meta name="al:ios:url" content="myURL">

59. Support deep linking
func application(application: UIApplication, openURL url: NSURL,
sourceApplication: String?, annotation: AnyObject) -> Bool {
// In this example, the URL is http://example.com/profile/?123
guard let component = NSURLComponents(URL: url, resolvingAgainstBaseURL: true),
let path = component.path, let query = component.query else { return false }
if path == "/profile" {
// Pass the profile ID from the URL, to the view controller
return profileViewController.loadProfile(query)
}
return false
}

60. Rich Results
→ Go beyond just a title and description
→ Results can contain images, structured data, and
even actions
→ Rich results are more engaging to users and can
improve your ranking

61. Other deep link schemes
Open Graph
<meta property="og:image" content="http://example.com/hello.jpg">
<meta property="og:audio" content="http://example.com/music.m4a">
<meta property="og:video" content="http://example.com/cats.mp4">
schema.org JSON-LD
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4",
"reviewCount": "250"
}
</script>

63. Supported schemas
→ AggregateRating
→ Offers
→ PriceRange
→ InteractionCount
→ Organization
→ Recipe

64. App Search API Validation Tool
Test your webpage for iOS 9 Search APIs. Enter a URL
and Applebot will crawl your webpage and show
how you can optimize for best results.
https://search.developer.apple.com/appsearch-
validation-tool/

65. Improve Ranking

66. Relevance

67. Linking 3 APIs

68. Linking 2 APIs

69. Relevance score

70. User Experience

71. Descriptive Results

72. Richer results have better satisfaction and engagement
→ Thumbnail, well-structured description, ratings,
and actions
→ Relevant and applealing image
→ Key information user is looking for

73. Keywords associate your result with queries
→ Typical items should have 3 to 5 keywords
→ Category keywords, e.g., "ticket" or "recipe"
→ Synonyms or abbreviations for item subject

74. UI Behavior on App Launch

75. Speed
Time from tapping a search result to the content in
your app is measured and used in ranking.

76. Data protection
Pay attention to the appropriate data protection
level for your user's content.

77. Common FAQs

78. Not showing in the search results
→ Try using different keywords
→ In the case of Web Markup, results will only show
up after the page has been crawled by Applebot,
and once a certain level of relevance has been
attained

79. Supported devices?
App Search is available with iOS9, However, the
search functionality of NSUserActivity and
CoreSpotlight are not supported on the iPhone 4s,
iPad 2, iPad (3rd generation), iPad mini, and iPod
touch (5th generation).

80. Available on OS X?
CoreSpotlight and the search functionality of
NSUserActivity are not supported. However, web
search results may be shown.

81. References
Introducing Search APIs
Seamless Linking to Your App
iOS Search API Best Practices and FAQs