iOS 8 was released earlier today, and one of my favorite features in the release is the Extensibility framework. It allows third-party developers to extend certain parts of their system.
In this post, we talk about Share Extensions, that can define their own sharing actions and are available in all standard iOS 8 share sheets. Here’s how to add Share Extensions to iOS 8.
- First, you’ll need to install an iOS 8 app with a Share extension. Popular ones include Pocket, Instapaper, Tumblr, Pinterest etc. If you have these apps installed, make sure you’ve updated them to the latest version.
- One you’ve installed the app, open an app that lets you share content. We’ll be using Safari and sharing to Pinterest.
- Open a webpage in Safari that you want to share, and tap on the Share icon.
- A popover will appear, with two rows of icons. The first row of icons has all the sharing options. Scroll to the right to reveal the “More” icon with three dots, and tap on it.
- You’ll get a list of all the available share extensions. New ones are disabled by default, and you’ll have to switch it on. So let’s switch on the Pinterest extension.
- After doing that, tap on Done, and you’ll now see the new sharing option available in the row of icons.
- Now tap on the new sharing icon, in this case Pinterest, to share the page. The Pinterest app brings up its own UI where you can specify the board name. One you’re done with that, tap Pin it to complete the sharing process.
Many apps have been updated to add Share Extensions for iOS 8, and we expect many more to come in the upcoming days. What’s your favorite share extension? Let us know in the comments below.
