Is it possible to register a http+domain-based URL Scheme for iPhone apps, like YouTube and Maps?
IphoneIosUrlIphone Problem Overview
I'd like to have iOS to open URLs from my domain (e.g. http://martijnthe.nl) with my app whenever the app is installed on the phone, and with Mobile Safari in case it is not.
I read it is possible to create a unique protocol suffix for this and register it in the Info.plist, but Mobile Safari will give an error in case the app is not installed.
What would be a workaround?
One idea:
-
Use http:// URLs that open in any desktop browser and render the service through the browser
-
Check the User-Agent and in case it's Mobile Safari, open a myprotocol:// URL to (attempt) to open the iPhone app and have it open Mobile iTunes to the download of the app in case the attempt fails
Not sure if this will work... suggestions? Thanks!
Iphone Solutions
Solution 1 - Iphone
I think the least intrusive way of doing this is as follows:
- Check if the user-agent is that of an iPhone/iPod Touch
- Check for an
appInstalledcookie - If the cookie exists and is set to true, set
window.locationtoyour-uri://(or do the redirect server side) - If the cookie doesn't exist, open a "Did you know Your Site Name has an iPhone application?" modal with a "Yep, I've already got it", "Nope, but I'd love to try it", and "Leave me alone" button.
- The "Yep" button sets the cookie to true and redirects to
your-uri:// - The "Nope" button redirects to "http://itunes.com/apps/yourappname" which will open the App Store on the device
- The "Leave me alone" button sets the cookie to false and closes the modal
The other option I've played with but found a little clunky was to do the following in Javascript:
setTimeout(function() {
window.location = "http://itunes.com/apps/yourappname";
}, 25);
// If "custom-uri://" is registered the app will launch immediately and your
// timer won't fire. If it's not set, you'll get an ugly "Cannot Open Page"
// dialogue prior to the App Store application launching
window.location = "custom-uri://";
Solution 2 - Iphone
It's quite possible to do this in JavaScript as long as your fallback is another applink. Building on Nathan's suggestion:
<html>
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
</head>
<body>
<h2><a id="applink1" href="fb://profile/116201417">open facebook with fallback to appstore</a></h2>
<h2><a id="applink2" href="unknown://nowhere">open unknown with fallback to appstore</a></h2>
<p><i>Only works on iPhone!</i></p>
<script type="text/javascript">
// To avoid the "protocol not supported" alert, fail must open another app.
var appstorefail = "itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook/id284882215?mt=8&uo=6";
function applink(fail){
return function(){
var clickedAt = +new Date;
// During tests on 3g/3gs this timeout fires immediately if less than 500ms.
setTimeout(function(){
// To avoid failing on return to MobileSafari, ensure freshness!
if (+new Date - clickedAt < 2000){
window.location = fail;
}
}, 500);
};
}
document.getElementById("applink1").onclick = applink(appstorefail);
document.getElementById("applink2").onclick = applink(appstorefail);
</script>
</body>
</html>
Solution 3 - Iphone
For iOS 6 devices, there is an option: Promoting Apps with Smart App Banners
Solution 4 - Iphone
I found that the selected answer works for the browser apps but I was having issues with the code working in non browser apps that implement a UIWebView.
The problem for me was a user on the Twitter app would click a link that would take them to my site through a UIWebView in the Twitter app. Then when they clicked a button from my site Twitter tries to be fancy and only complete the window.location if the site is reachable. So what happens is a UIAlertView pops up saying are you sure you want to continue and then immediately redirects to the App Store without a second popup.
My solution involves iframes. This avoids the UIAlertView being presented allowing for a simple and elegant user experience.
jQuery
var redirect = function (location) {
$('body').append($('<iframe></iframe>').attr('src', location).css({
width: 1,
height: 1,
position: 'absolute',
top: 0,
left: 0
}));
};
setTimeout(function () {
redirect('http://itunes.apple.com/app/id');
}, 25);
redirect('custom-uri://');
Javascript
var redirect = function (location) {
var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
iframe.setAttribute('src', location);
iframe.setAttribute('width', '1px');
iframe.setAttribute('height', '1px');
iframe.setAttribute('position', 'absolute');
iframe.setAttribute('top', '0');
iframe.setAttribute('left', '0');
document.documentElement.appendChild(iframe);
iframe.parentNode.removeChild(iframe);
iframe = null;
};
setTimeout(function () {
redirect('http://itunes.apple.com/app/id');
}, 25);
redirect('custom-uri://');
EDIT:
Add position absolute to the iframe so when inserted there isn't a random bit of whitespace at the bottom of the page.
Also it's important to note that I have not found a need for this approach with Android. Using window.location.href should work fine.
Solution 5 - Iphone
In iOS9 Apple finally introduced the possibility to register your app to handle certain http:// URLs: Universal Links.
A very rough explanation of how it works:
- You declare interest in opening
http://URLs for certain domains (web urls) in your app. - On the server of the specified domains you have to indicate which URLs to open in which app that has declared interest in opening URLs from the server's domain.
- The iOS URL loading service checks all attempts to open
http://URLs for a setup as explained above and opens the correct app automatically if installed; without going through Safari first...
This is the cleanest way to do deep linking on iOS, unfortunately it works only in iOS9 and newer...
Solution 6 - Iphone
BUILDING Again on Nathan and JB's Answer:
How To Launch App From url w/o Extra Click If you prefer a solution that does not include the interim step of clicking a link, the following can be used. With this javascript, I was able to return a Httpresponse object from Django/Python that successfully launches an app if it is installed or alternatively launches the app store in the case of a time out. Note I also needed to adjust the timeout period from 500 to 100 in order for this to work on an iPhone 4S. Test and tweak to get it right for your situation.
<html>
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
</head>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
// To avoid the "protocol not supported" alert, fail must open another app.
var appstorefail = "itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook/id284882215?mt=8&uo=6";
var loadedAt = +new Date;
setTimeout(
function(){
if (+new Date - loadedAt < 2000){
window.location = appstorefail;
}
}
,100);
function LaunchApp(){
window.open("unknown://nowhere","_self");
};
LaunchApp()
</script>
</body>
</html>
Solution 7 - Iphone
window.location = appurl;// fb://method/call..
!window.document.webkitHidden && setTimeout(function () {
setTimeout(function () {
window.location = weburl; // http://itunes.apple.com/..
}, 100);
}, 600);
document.webkitHidden is to detect if your app is already invoked and current safari tab to going to the background, this code is from www.baidu.com
Solution 8 - Iphone
If you add an iframe on your web page with the src set to custom scheme for your App, iOS will automatically redirect to that location in the App. If the app is not installed, nothing will happen. This allows you to deep link into the App if it is installed, or redirect to the App Store if it is not installed.
For example, if you have the twitter app installed, and navigate to a webpage containing the following markup, you would be immediately directed to the app.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>iOS Automatic Deep Linking</title>
</head>
<body>
<iframe src="twitter://" width="0" height="0"></iframe>
<p>Website content.</p>
</body>
</html>
Here is a more thorough example that redirects to the App store if the App is not installed:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>iOS Automatic Deep Linking</title>
<script src='//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.2.min.js'></script>
<script src='//mobileesp.googlecode.com/svn/JavaScript/mdetect.js'></script>
<script>
(function ($, MobileEsp) {
// On document ready, redirect to the App on the App store.
$(function () {
if (typeof MobileEsp.DetectIos !== 'undefined' && MobileEsp.DetectIos()) {
// Add an iframe to twitter://, and then an iframe for the app store
// link. If the first fails to redirect to the Twitter app, the
// second will redirect to the app on the App Store. We use jQuery
// to add this after the document is fully loaded, so if the user
// comes back to the browser, they see the content they expect.
$('body').append('<iframe class="twitter-detect" src="twitter://" />')
.append('<iframe class="twitter-detect" src="itms-apps://itunes.com/apps/twitter" />');
}
});
})(jQuery, MobileEsp);
</script>
<style type="text/css">
.twitter-detect {
display: none;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>Website content.</p>
</body>
</html>
Solution 9 - Iphone
Heres a solution.
Setup a boolean sitiation using blur and focus
//see if our window is active
window.isActive = true;
$(window).focus(function() { this.isActive = true; });
$(window).blur(function() { this.isActive = false; });
Bind your link with a jquery click handler that calls something like this.
function startMyApp(){
document.location = 'fb://';
setTimeout( function(){
if (window.isActive) {
document.location = 'http://facebook.com';
}
}, 1000);
}
if the app opens, we'll lose focus on the window and the timer ends. otherwise we get nothing and we load the usual facebook url.
Solution 10 - Iphone
You can't, as far as I know, make the entire OS understand an http:+domain URL. You can only register new schemes (I use x-darkslide: in my app). If the app is installed, Mobile Safari will launch the app correctly.
However, you would have to handle the case where the app isn't installed with a "Still here? Click this link to download the app from iTunes." in your web page.
Solution 11 - Iphone
> Check the User-Agent and in case it's > Mobile Safari, open a myprotocol:// > URL to (attempt) to open the iPhone > app and have it open Mobile iTunes to > the download of the app in case the > attempt fails
This sounds a reasonable approach to me, but I don't think you'll be able to get it to open mobile itunes as a second resort. I think you'll have to pick one or the other - either redirect to your app or to itunes.
i.e. if you redirect to myprotocol://, and the app isn't on the phone, you won't get a second chance to redirect to itunes.
You could perhaps first redirect to an (iphone optimised) landing page and give the user the option to click through to your app, or to itunes to get the app if they don't have it? But, you'll be relying on the user to do the right thing there. (Edit: though you could set a cookie so that is a first-time thing only?)
Solution 12 - Iphone
In seeking to fix the problem of pop-up, I discovered that Apple had a way around this concern.
Indeed, when you click on this link, if you installed the application, it is rerouted to it; otherwise, you will be redirected to the webpage, without any pop-up.
Solution 13 - Iphone
It also possible to check tab activity by document.hidden property
Possible solution
document.location = 'app://deep-link';
setInterval( function(){
if (!document.hidden) {
document.location = 'https://app.store.link';
}
}, 1000);
But seems like this not works in Safari