With Android 11 expected to come to devices in the next few months, users on Reddit are reporting an issue with Android 10, at least on Pixel devices. It seems links to apps like Twitter and Instagram aren’t opening as they should. According to a Reddit user, the links keep asking the user which app to use to open such links. “Twitter and Instagram links especially are constantly asking me which app to open them in, even though I always choose ‘always use this app’ and change it to ‘open every time’ in the settings,” wrote the user who goes by mb9203. “I don’t know if it’s after the apps update it makes me do it again? It usually works for a few days at least,” he added,
Android has a feature which gives users the choice to open a link in different ways. So, since a link to an Instagram post can open on both the Instagram app and Google Chrome or some other web browser, Android will show you all the options. This includes browsers, apps and any other apps that can open the link.
However, Android also has the option to set a certain app as default to open such links. So you can set Instagram and Twitter links to open with their respective apps. The same should happen for Reddit and any other such app. On the Pixel phones though, users get the option to set something as default, but the phone doesn’t actually set that as default.
Essentially, you’re directed to a screen that lets you select the option and then you go back to the source where you found the link. But the default is never actually set. One user on the thread says the problem doesn’t exist in Samsung’s Galaxy devices, but three different users confirmed that the feature doesn’t work on the Pixel 4, Pixel 3 and Pixel 2 smartphones.
It doesn’t seem like Google has anything in the works to fix the issue right now, but one could hope it gets fixed in the next version of Android. The good news is that Samsung has fixed it, which means other manufacturers, like Xiaomi, Huawei etc. could also make changes in their own custom user interfaces.
