Dear Aunt TUAW,
It seems that every time I go to a website on my iPad or iPod touch I get pestered by these little popup windows (that look just like the native Apple push notifications) letting me know that xyz site has a native app, and offers to take me to the app store to download it. Not only do I not care about the app, the popups annoy the heck out of me! Is there any way to get rid of them, jailbreak or not?
Your extremely flustered nephew,
Kyle
Dear Kyle,
Auntie know precisely what you’re talking about, and those things seriously get on her nerves. That’s because you, as the user, can’t do anything about it other than by spoofing the user agent so the site doesn’t catch that you’re visiting on a mobile device.
It’s up to the site administrator. Site admins can and should turn them off. But they don’t, because there’s simply not enough public outrage.
So yes, you can jailbreak and universally set a different user agent using one of the many switcher tools to surf with Safari. You can also use a third party App Store browser with built-in user-agent spoofing on non-jailbroken systems. (Auntie really isn’t crazy about any of the ones she’s tried to date, so she doesn’t generally recommend third party browsers for day-to-day surfage.)
In the end, the root of the problem is that not enough people are calling, writing, and picketing against this widespread mal-de-web. If you know a website that does this, drop Auntie a note and she’ll try to create a Sites-of-Shame list over the next week or two.
With your help, we shall fight in the Web Browsers, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets…
Hugs,
Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me fight the evil that pushes native app reminders originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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