From a quick glance at the docs (http://applinks.org/documentation/) it appears that this standard depends on the web to define app links independently from the apps themselves. Basic flow would look something like:

- user submits content with a link to http://imgur.com/vxKOi to your social app of the month

- another user taps that link in the app

- the app would look at that url's header and pull out any applink information.

- using the downloaded links, the app would try to open the imgur app with the provided url

- the imgur would then open, showing the content for the url that was tapped.

Note that none of the above mentions being on an iPhone, thus the cross-platform nature of the solution.

It's cross-platform, so the URI list will work across apps on multiple platforms. So that's the biggest difference, I suppose. iOS, Android, Windows Phone.

That's the first question that popped into my head. I've some reading to do about App Links before being able to answer it properly, though.

From what I understand, app indexing is currently Android only, whereas app links was designed to be cross platform from the start.