Hi Keith,
Android does not ship with a default PDF reading experience, so Android users view PDFs through third party apps like Adobe Reader. This is different than iOS, which includes PDF rendering within the browser.
At the time of this writing, AEM Mobile does not support the rendering of arbitrary PDFs in the in-app web browser (or anywhere outside of articles), so the customer leaves the app to view a PDF delivered directly from an HTTP endpoint.
If there is a PDF renderer app like Adobe Reader on the device on which you are testing, then linked PDF files from AEM Mobile should render in that app. Specifically, AEM Mobile recognizes that the URL in question is a PDF, and then hands the URL to the operating system, and the operating system opens it in the appropriate app.
One possible workaround to keep the user in the app would be to upload the PDF separately as a published, but orphaned, article and then link to that orphaned PDF article using a navto. Of course, that has other tradeoffs like any updates to the PDF would require re-publishing the article.
To understand more about exactly where the problem is, can you post some more details (to me privately if you're not comfortable posting them publicly):
* What is the URL in question (you can leave out the domain name - I'm more interested in the path and the file extension, if any)?
* What happens if you link to a non-remote PDF, for example one in shared content?
* Can you confirm that the behavior is the exact same whether the link is a hyperlink overlay within a fixed layout file from InDesign or a hyperlink in an HTML article?
Thanks,
Kirk