How to link to apps on the app store

Question

I am creating a free version of my iPhone game. I want to have a button inside the free version that takes people to the paid version in the app store. If I use a standard link

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=300136119&mt=8

the iPhone opens Safari first, and then the app store. I have used other apps that open the app store directly, so I know it is possible.

Any ideas? What is the URL Scheme for the app store?

Answer 1

Simply change 'itunes' to 'phobos' in the app link.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=300136119&mt=8

Now it will open the App Store directly

Answer 2

Edited on 2016-02-02

Starting from iOS 6 SKStoreProductViewController class was introduced. You can link an app without leaving your app. Code snippet in Swift 3.x/2.x and Objective-C is here.

A SKStoreProductViewController object presents a store that allows the user to purchase other media from the App Store. For example, your app might display the store to allow the user to purchase another app.

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From News and Announcement For Apple Developers.

Drive Customers Directly to Your App on the App Store with iTunes Links With iTunes links you can provide your customers with an easy way to access your apps on the App Store directly from your website or marketing campaigns. Creating an iTunes link is simple and can be made to direct customers to either a single app, all your apps, or to a specific app with your company name specified.

To send customers to a specific application: http://itunes.com/apps/appname

To send customers to a list of apps you have on the App Store: http://itunes.com/apps/developername

To send customers to a specific app with your company name included in the URL: http://itunes.com/apps/developername/appname

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Additional notes:

You can replace http:// with itms:// or itms-apps:// to avoid redirects.

For info on naming, see Apple QA1633:

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1633/_index.html.

Edit (as of January 2015):

itunes.com/apps links should be updated to appstore.com/apps. See QA1633 above, which has been updated. A new QA1629 suggests these steps and code for launching the store from an app:

1. Launch iTunes on your computer.
2. Search for the item you want to link to.
3. Right-click or control-click on the item's name in iTunes, then choose "Copy iTunes Store URL" from the pop-up menu.
4. In your application, create an NSURL object with the copied iTunes URL, then pass this object to UIApplication' s openURL: method to open your item in the App Store.

Sample code:

NSString *iTunesLink = @"itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8";
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:iTunesLink]];

Swift 3.0

   let urlStr = "itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8"
    if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
        UIApplication.shared.open(URL(string: urlStr)!, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)

    } else {
        UIApplication.shared.openURL(URL(string: urlStr)!)
    }

Answer 3

If you want to link to a developer's apps and the developer's name has punctuation or spaces (e.g. Development Company, LLC) form your URL like this:

itms-apps://itunes.com/apps/DevelopmentCompanyLLC

Otherwise it returns "This request cannot be processed" on iOS 4.3.3

Answer 4

Despite there being loads of answers here, none of the suggestions for linking to the developers apps seem to work anymore.

When I last visited I was able to get it working using the format:

itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/developer/developer-name/id123456789

This no longer works, but removing the developer name does:

itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/developer/id123456789

Answer 5

This is simple and short way to redirect/link other existing application on app store.

 NSString *customURL = @"http://itunes.apple.com/app/id951386316";

 if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:customURL]])
 {
       [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:customURL]];
 } 

Answer 6

This code generates the App Store link on iOS

NSString *appName = [NSString stringWithString:[[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary]   objectForKey:@"CFBundleName"]];
NSURL *appStoreURL = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"itms-apps://itunes.com/app/%@",[appName stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@""]]];

Replace itms-apps with http on Mac:

NSURL *appStoreURL = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"http:/itunes.com/app/%@",[appName stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@""]]]; 

Open URL on iOS:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:appStoreURL];

Mac:

[[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openURL:appStoreURL];