I want to be using URL-Schemes in my application so when someone use the URL-Scheme, they unlock PRO version inside the application.
BUT, how can i make that the URL-Scheme can be used only once? So only 1 person can use the url scheme, and when the url scheme is used, it cannot be used again?
Usaully, to unlock the pro version, you should be using in-app purchases!
Related
I have several apps and I want to know from app A whether app B or C are installed. In Android I can check does package exist, but is there something like this in iOS and windows store app? I'm using Xamarin for iOS.
For iOS you can get your apps to confirm unique URL schemes and check whether they can be opened.
References:
URL schemes - https://www.appcoda.com/working-url-schemes-ios/
Can open url - https://developer.xamarin.com/api/member/UIKit.UIApplication.CanOpenUrl/p/Foundation.NSUrl/
You can use system Keychain to achieve this.
Values in system Keychain can be shared between collection of apps and you can set values like isAppBExists and isAppCExists to true/false in this apps. And then check this values in app A
Link to documentation
For UWP app, you can use PackageManager.FindPackagesForUser Method to find all packages installed for the specified user.
See the following similar topic:
how to get list of all installed apps and run them in UWP WinRT 8.1
Get List of installed windows apps
How can i get a list of all my iphone apps (even pointers for each app will be helpful)?
I'm developing an app which contain some screen that should have a list of all my installed apps (with their icon) and the option to select one to launch it in the future depends in other function of mine.
Thanks alot!
There's no way to accomplish this, because each app is sandboxed.
You would be able to determine if select apps are installed if they have custom URL schemes. For example, the Facebook app can be launched with the custom url scheme "fb://", but these aren't guaranteed to be unique, so a different app could use a scheme that's well known to belong to another app. Also not all apps have a custom URL scheme, and you would need some master list (that would need to be constantly updated to be accurate) to check for the presence of each. So you could maybe detect a select list of well-known apps with custom URL schemes, but never get a list of all of them.
If you just wanted to detect your own apps, you could have custom URL schemes that are almost certainly going to be unique set for each app, and check for those.
You could also jailbreak your device, but I'm assuming you want this functionality in an app that is distributed on the app store, so you wouldn't be able to add functionality that requires a jailbreak to work.
EDIT:
Here's an example showing detection of the Facebook app being installed:
if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"fb://"]])
{
// Handle the Facebook app being installed
}
Note however, this won't give you any information about the app. Any app developer could add the "fb://" custom url scheme to their app, which would make this falsely detect it.
If you want to find lists of custom url schemes for iOS apps, just search in Google.
another way to look at this is to present the user with all of your app in the appstore. If they have any apps installed on their device then in iOS 7 they will see a button called "Open" next to each of them.
For example you can have a UITableViewCell or a UIButton that says "Checkout Our Apps". In the code you would add this.
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"itms://itunes.com/apps/sixaxisllc"]];
Replace SixAxis LLC with your iTunes developer name and when users click on it, it will launch AppStore app with only your apps are shown. (With Open or price amount next to each of them)
NOTE: test this on actual device and not in simulator
Because of the Sandboxed environment, all you can do is test if it you can open a custom URL.
Akosma Software maintains a list of popular Url on his wiki: IPhone URL Schemes.
I am trying to detect if my ipad app is installed on a device when visiting my website, in order to suggest different action to the visitor.
Thanks to this post :
https://stackoverflow.com/a/8310348/1128754
I found that the "store" application on iphone seems to have achieve to detect if the app is installed on the device. When you click on store links, it launch the app instead of going to the mobile web version.
For example, if you go to :
http://store.apple.com/xc/anythinghere
with an iphone on which apple store app is installed ( http://itunes.apple.com/app/id375380948 )
it automatically start the store app, instead of the web page.
I tried to follow the stack call with mitmproxy but safari doesn't seems to ask query before launching the app.
So, I guess they did custom url scheme recognition, with http:// links.
Do you think it is possible?
This is done with URL protocol handlers:
http://www.iphonedevfaq.com/index.php?title=URL_schemes#URL_Protocol_Handlers
You cannot detect if an app is installed from HTML, but you can launch an app. For example, the popular game "Doodle Jump" can be launched by going to doodlejump://, but if you don't have it installed, the link won't work. As mentioned, this is done with a custom URL scheme and needs to be coded into your app.
There are a few apps which I find very helpful and want to recommend to my users inside my app. If one such app is installed, and the user taps the button, I want to launch that app. Otherwise open the app page in the App Store app.
UIApplication provides a -canOpenURL: method which I think can be used to check if an app exists on the device. With -openURL: an app can be launched. But how do I construct an NSURL to launch an app?
The apps I want to refer to don't have any special registered URL scheme, at least not that I know of. All I know is their name and app ID.
Is that possible or must the developers of these apps update their apps to support custom URL opening schemes?
It is only possible to open the app by url in case it has known registered URL scheme (it may me your application or one of the existing iOS schemes)
Here is a list of public URL schemes. This however is just a fraction of what is out there in the market. It may however be helpful for you.
If 2 other app register same url scheme, how iOS handle this?
The iOS Documentation reads:
Note: If more than one third-party app registers to handle the same URL scheme, there is currently no process for determining which app will be given that scheme.
The OSs behaviour is undefined if there are two apps registered for an URL scheme, therefore you should try to define a handler that is specific for your app to avoid this situation (e.g. awesomeMapsApp:// instead of maps://).
Actually it can be really problematic. For example, til' March 2016, an app called Grabb handles PayPal schemes so that if your app tries to open PayPal (with all the security nonce etc. within the call) it launches Grabb instead, and you can do nothing about it. Even with the openURL alertView added in iOS 9, it can still be a big security issue.
Here is what I have tested:
iOS 5: the first installed app will be chosen. If you delete first installed app, then the others will not launch unless you install again.
iOS 6: the lastest installed app will be chosen. If you delete the lastest installed app, then the previous installed app will be chosen.
It will present an UIActionSheet view allowing the user to choose which app to launch (good example are apps that handle .doc files). That's where the icon you specify is used - on the action sheet buttons when it's shown to the user