canOpenURL Is Deprecated: What to Call Instead

Apple retired a method that has shipped since iOS 3.0 in three sentences: “canOpenURL: is deprecated. Attempt to open the URL and handle any failure instead of validating it first. Using universal links instead of custom URL schemes removes the need for this validation entirely.”1

The entry carries radar 179874781 and sits under UIKit, Deprecations, directly beneath the scene life cycle mandate that stops apps from launching.1 The neighboring entry names a consequence. The canOpenURL entry names none.

Each of the three sentences is a separate instruction, and only the second answers the question a developer actually has: what do I write instead? Apple’s answer changes the shape of the call, not just the name.

TL;DR

• Apple deprecated canOpenURL(_:) at 27.0 on iOS, iPadOS, Mac Catalyst, tvOS, and visionOS, with the message “Prefer attempting to open URLs and handling any failures.”2 No removal version, no runtime consequence.
• The change with teeth is a number, and it sits in the deprecated method’s own discussion rather than in any release note: “Apps linked on or after iOS 27 are limited to a maximum of 25 entries in the LSApplicationQueriesSchemes key,” down from 50.2 The trigger is the SDK you link against.
• The mechanical swap is open(_:options:completionHandler:) and its Boolean, which needs no allowlist entry: “the open(_:options:completionHandler:) method isn’t constrained by the LSApplicationQueriesSchemes requirement.”2
• One pattern loses its replacement, because canOpenURL answers before you draw anything while attempting answers by consequence: a success puts another app in the foreground.2 What survives is universalLinksOnly, an open option since iOS 10 that Apple has not deprecated: it “opens the URL only if the URL is a valid universal link and there is an installed app capable of opening that URL.”3
• SwiftUI never shipped the method, and its completion Boolean already means “can open” rather than “did open.”415 Across seven of my shipping apps and 463…