Google Chrome’s Native App Launcher (overview) was first released in 2013 before the existence of iOS Universal Links. It filled a functionality gap then and helped promote the Google iOS apps ecosystem. However, the wider adoption of Universal Links has reduced the effectiveness of Native App Launcher and in some cases made it more confusing to the casual user.
Native App Launcher implementation taps into the page loading and link following code path and comes at a relatively high maintenance cost.
Comment 1 by pkl@chromium.org
, Apr 13 2017