Choose among SMS, WhatsApp, or Telegram to send message

Question

At a contact list in my Android app, there is an option to launch WhatsApp implemented as follows:

// Country code is required
final String phoneNumber = "+15555555555";
final String packageName = "com.whatsapp";

Intent intent = getPackageManager().getLaunchIntentForPackage(packageName);

if (null == intent) {
    // Launch Google Play at WhatsApp homepage
    intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
    intent.setData(Uri.parse("market://details?id=" + MESSAGE_PACKAGE_NAME));
    startActivity(intent);
    return;
}

intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, Uri.parse("smsto:" + phoneNumber));
intent.setPackage(packageName);
startActivity(intent);

but this only allow me to send messages through WhatsApp.

Removing the package name and setting the intent type to

intent.setType("vnd.android-dir/mms-sms");

launched the SMS application.

How can we choose among all apps installed at an Android device that use the phone number as and identifier (Hangouts, SMS, Skype, Line, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp, etc)?

Answer 1

Fortunately Android Intent.createChooser is smart enough to figure out the apps that understand the phone numbers as an identifier :-)

// Country code is required
String phoneNumber = "+15555555555";
Uri uri = Uri.parse("smsto:" + phoneNumber);
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, uri);
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Send message"));