Downloads for iOS devices

[MatthewHSE]

I run a site offering various downloadable files. It’s a pretty typical situation; users have to register for the file(s) they want and they get a unique download link that’s only good for a certain number of uses. It works flawlessly for desktop users and Android devices, but we regularly get emails from iOS users who aren’t able to download the files - especially the ZIP archives.

I don’t have access to an iPhone/iPad to test personally, but from what I can tell from searching around, it appears Apple, in their infinite wisdom, has decided their users just don’t need to download these files from the web. The only workaround I’ve been able to find was one user who successfully downloaded the file to his Google Drive account.

So, I guess I have two questions:

1.) Is it actually true that iOS can’t download files from the web? That seems almost unbelievable, even for Apple.
2.) Has anyone found an easy-to-use workaround for this, either server-side or client-side?

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

[jeffreylees]

1. Yes, basically. Natively, with Safari they cannot afaik. Chrome does allow files to be downloaded, then passed off to an app to deal with (something like Google Drive, or whatever else the user has). If they have some sort of file manager, they’ll have slightly more freedom, but most don’t have one.

2. For ZIP files… I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. If the user is already using some sort of third party file manager for iOS, perhaps, but without that, I don’t even know how they would interact with the files other than to just pass them on to another app (Mail, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). For things like PDFs… I assume that a way to download to a cloud storage account and then view would work…
   You’re right, it is a little absurd, in some ways, but iOS is definitely not built around downloadable content, other than media from their own ecosystem.