Develop Reference

Creating web links that will open a website, iOS, Android or Win8 app depending on device

Does anyone have any suggestions for the best way to create a web link that, depending on the device the user is browsing with will direct them to a website (for laptop/desktops), the App Store (for iOS devices), the Play Store (for Android devices) or the Win8 store, with a default to the website if device type is unknown?
At the moment, the best option seems to be to direct users to a website exclusively, with smart banners that will show a link to the App Store on relevant devices using the following code in the site header:
<meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=myAppStoreID, affiliate-data=myAffiliateData, app-argument=myURL">
But this is inelegant and can be missed by site visitors plus the additional step leads to a high dropoff. Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated!

Rather delayed reply but here goes:
Detect which OS is being used using Javascript code. Link
Change the hyperlink based on whether it is an iPhone Android or Windows.
If its iPhone use this, if its Android use this and for Windows use this
Hope that helped!

What is the easiest way to turn a webapp into a mobile app?

The company I work for is exploring creating "an app" version of their online video delivery webapp. The webapp is HTML5 and streams video. Nothing too scary but a lot of the stuff is server-side authentication with third party video hosts, code that will never be in a mobile app for security reasons.
The webapp has a lovely mobile stylesheet that works fine. We want an app that:
Shows a quick splash screen (and even that's optional)
Load the existing mobile website (not include it within the app)
And have the ability to specify an icon, give it a name and then shove it in the relevant marketplaces. That should satisfy the marketing department and it means I stay in control of what the app actually does.
Yeah, it's possibly the laziest app development ever... But, what's the simplest way to generate something like this? I was imagining there might be something out there already where you feed it your starting URL, splash screen, icon and name and it hands you back a multi-platform app.
Note: I'm not looking for something to create an app that looks like the mobile website and I'm not looking to put the content of the mobile website inside the app, I essentially just want a browser that loads the real mobile site.

Have a look at https://www.shoutem.com/. They provide a service similar to what you seem to be looking for but they charge royally for it. Considering the extra features you can easily add with their service your marketing department might just smell profit from using it and may therefore happily sign it off with their well known satanic smile.

There are a number of websites which provide easy web app development for a website. One of the famous is App Maker . Others include:http://www.viziapps.com/ and http://ibuildapp.com/

Since posting this, I have found:
http://www.websitetoapp.net/create
Feed it a URL and an Icon and it'll give you an Android app. Pay $5 and they'll disable adverts. Seems like it might be perfect for the Android half of this project.
Now, is there anything out there that will do this for other platforms?

Social sharing on Android

So sharing on social channels is a hot topic these days.
I have done some research on how to share to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and G+.
Lets start with an example.. I want to share text, and an image to 4 social channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and G+), but without the user adding more text.
My findings so far:
You can use Intent.ACTION_SEND but there are a lot of limitations like:
You need to make your own chooser if you want to filter the social channels
Sending text and image is not possible without the user adding more text
Using default social channel APIs, but:
Can be overhead, you only want to share.
Are not always stable.
There are some open source libraries you can use, but they are not as complete as you may think
Use paid services (do I need to say more...)
So in conclusion, I need help. What is the way to go?.

You don't need to do anything for the Intent.ACTION_SEND. Specifically because the apps listed are meant to handle this intent.
This should be perfectly fine because you'd rather have the user's choose what they'd like to share it on then constrain them to one. I'd say if you're looking to share then stick with the standard on android and use ACTION_SEND.
You can't expect the user to have Application A when they may prefer using Application B. Don't think in terms of constraint.
Also as your comment about the limitation of ACTION_SEND.. I'd recommend re-reading the documentation because I don't see that limitation anywhere:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html#ACTION_SEND

You can use SocialAuthwhich supports 10 social providers and it provides you functionality's like share text , upload image , get albums , feeds etc.

Is there a way in which Pinterest can be integrated with an android Application

I wish to drop pins or view the photo's which are of my interest in my Android Application, do we have any SDK by pinterest , as I would want to integrate the same inside my Android Application.
Any suggestions would be like a boon

http://developers.pinterest.com/android/
This is for others who might want to get started with pinterest and land in this page.

It seems like the answer is "not yet"... But go and sign up with them, I'm sure it's on their radar and will come soon enough if it's in their basic FAQ.
https://support.pinterest.com/entries/21151603-i-m-a-developer-does-pinterest-have-a-public-api
Another option (or just for the meantime before they release an official API) may be if the official pinterest app offers an intent for sharing? Plenty of other social web entities like twitter, facebook, etc give intent based access in their official apps, that let you dump media, links, etc into them from other apps in the system, and have the information posted to your accounts.

Best way for social sharing in Android

I've been looking for a way to share information to social networks. I've found 2 possible solutions:
Look for installed apps and sent an intent (like android uses in it's gallery)
Use the socials network api
When looking for quick ways to implements i say use the installed apps for that but if it goes customization and generalization i think the second option is the best.
I've a hard time deciding if one outweighs the other or not.
So my question is: What is the best approach? One of the ones i suggested or a whole different way?

The Android OS uses intents to do this...
While searching for an answer to this question I came across:
Social sharing on mobile
Quoting #NewProggie
Intent share = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
share.setType("image/jpeg") // might be text, sound, whatever
share.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, pathToPicture);
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(share, "share"));
Depending on the MIME type you put in for setType, the chooser will show email, gmail, SMS, twitter, facebook, flickr, or whatever!
This is the easiest way to share content for the developer, and a proven method.

I have worked with the Facebook API and I know that it's a really good one. It looks if a native Facebook app is installed, if not it pops a little popup on your screen where it does it things, if yes, it uses that app to do your things.
I think you have to take the same approach for all your Social Networks: check if app exist. if yes, use. if no, use own implementation

You might also check Socialize out http://www.GetSocialize.com . Full feature list at http://go.GetSocialize.com/features It'll let you share social actions in the app out to social networks (currently Facebook; Twitter coming this month, then likely Google+ after that).

What about the case when user does not have specific social network API installed? Then you are left with only using the API. Some might argue that if user doesn't have facebook app installed, he should not be able to share stuff on facebook, but I for example use facebook throught their mobile site, I won't waste precious space on my G1 for the hefty facebook app.
I'd go with using the API.