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

Creating a link could become a complex issue when supporting multiple OS and multiple platform. For example the WebObjects isn't supported on iOS 7 (some of them), some links you create would open another country store then the user's etc.

There is an open source library called iLink that could help you.

There advantages of this library is that the links would be found and created at run time (the library would check the app ID and the OS it is running on and would figure out what link should be created). The best point in this is that you don't need to configure almost anything before using it so that is error free and would work always. That's great also if you have few targets on same project so you don't have to remember which app ID or link to use. This library also would prompt the user to upgrade the app if there is a new version on the store (this is built in and you turn this off by a simple flag) directly pointing to the upgrade page for the app if user agrees.

Copy the 2 library files to your project (iLink.h & iLink.m).

On your appDelegate.m:

#import "iLink.h"

+ (void)initialize
{
    //configure iLink
    [iLink sharedInstance].globalPromptForUpdate = YES; // If you want iLink to prompt user to update when the app is old.
}

and on the place you want to open the rating page for example just use:

[[iLink sharedInstance] iLinkOpenAppPageInAppStoreWithAppleID: YOUR_PAID_APP_APPLE_ID]; // You should find YOUR_PAID_APP_APPLE_ID from iTunes Connect 

Don't forget to import iLink.h on the same file.

There is a very good doc for the whole library there and an example projects for iPhone and for Mac.

Answer 2

You can get a link to a specific item in the app store or iTunes through the link maker at: http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/

Answer 3

For summer 2015 onwards ...

-(IBAction)clickedUpdate
{
    NSString *simple = @"itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id1234567890";
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:simple]];
}

replace 'id1234567890' with 'id' and 'your ten digit number'

1. This works perfectly on all devices.

2. It does go straight to the app store, no redirects.

3. Is OK for all national stores.

4. It's true you should move to using loadProductWithParameters, but if the purpose of the link is to update the app you are actually inside of: it's possibly better to use this "old-fashioned" approach.

Answer 4

This is working and directly linking in ios5

NSString *iTunesLink = @"http://itunes.apple.com/app/baseball-stats-tracker-touch/id490256272?mt=8";  
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:iTunesLink]];

Answer 5

I can confirm that if you create an app in iTunes connect you get your app id before you submit it.

Therefore..

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

NSURL *appStoreURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id123456789"];
    if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication]canOpenURL:appStoreURL])
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication]openURL:appStoreURL];

Works a treat