Blank target links no longer works on iOS 18 in BlazorWebView

[MoienTajik]

Description

If you have a MAUI Blazor application and have an a tag in your component, like this:

<a href="https://google.com" target="_blank">Test</a>

Clicking on the a tag with _blank target on iOS 18 causes following error:

[Application] BUG IN CLIENT OF UIKIT: The caller of UIApplication.openURL(_:) needs to migrate to the non-deprecated UIApplication.open(_:options:completionHandler:). Force returning false (NO).

This works fine on iOS 17.5.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a new MAUI Blazor Hybrid App
2. Put a link with blank target in one of your Blazor components, like this:

<a href="https://google.com" target="_blank">Test</a>

3. Run the app and try to click on the link

Version with bug

8.0.92 SR9.2

Is this a regression from previous behavior?

No, this is something new

Last version that worked well

8.0.92 SR9.2

Affected platforms

iOS

Affected platform versions

iOS 18

Relevant log output

[Application] BUG IN CLIENT OF UIKIT: The caller of UIApplication.openURL(_:) needs to migrate to the non-deprecated UIApplication.open(_:options:completionHandler:). Force returning false (NO).

[mkArtakMSFT]

Thanks for contacting us. Can you please try to validate this scenario with plain WebView, rather than BlazorWebview and see if the behavior persists?

[MoienTajik]

Thanks for contacting us. Can you please try to validate this scenario with plain WebView, rather than BlazorWebview and see if the behavior persists?

No, it only happens with BlazorWebView. Testing that is also easy, create a new MAUI Hybrid App. There's a default MainLayout.razor page that contains an About link to Microsoft, which is now broken on iOS 18:

@inherits LayoutComponentBase

<div class="page">
    <div class="sidebar">
        <NavMenu />
    </div>

    <main>
        <div class="top-row px-4">
            <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/aspnet/core/" target="_blank">About</a>
        </div>

        <article class="content px-4">
            @Body
        </article>
    </main>
</div>

Here's also the sample project, if needed (bug/url-issue branch).

[MoienTajik]

For now, a workaround is to use IBrowser and open the link like this:

await Browser.Default.OpenAsync(uri, BrowserLaunchMode.SystemPreferred);

[ninachen03]

This issue has been verified using Visual Studio 17.12.0 Preview 5(8.0.92 & 8.0.3). Can repro this issue at iOS platform.