App Clips scanned by Android Users

App Clip codes are just URLs (If using NFC or QR codes). So it would just go to that URL in a browser.

The special circular App Clip code has a standard NFC chip in it and the outer circles are like a custom QR code pattern. I don’t think Android apps could read that. But they should be able to use the NFC tag and open the URL.

But how will that appear on an Android device?

Well if you registered https://example.com/store/1 as an App Clip then on an iOS device running iOS14 it would open the App Clip. iOS 13 and less it would pop up a notification if NFC saying a URL has been scanned, do you want to open in Safari. Same with a QR code.

So on an Android device it would go to that URL in a browser. You have to own https://example.com to link it to an App Clip so on your web server serve some content from https://example.com/store/1 and the Android device will load whatever content is there.

Effectively, one way or another you'd be navigated to the website that is registered with your NFC chip as described above. If your site used the "user agent" header to do redirects that'd be up to you. For example, you could try and see if the user agent said it was Android OS and redirect to a page telling them to get an iPhone if they want to use your App Clip :)

So it is ultimately up to you what they see. It is your site, and their web browser.

I tried Core NFC out with some of the tags I bought when I got my Xs which supports background tag reading. iOS beautifully shows a local notification on the top of the screen, and then tapping opens Safari directly to my page, or presumably the universal link into my app although I didn't try that. My Android friends, the experience for them wasn't the same and varied for each of them. Some OEMs went straight to internet browser, while others prompt the user asking them what they wanted to do (choose chrome or x, y, z other browsers).