I want to add a rate button to the settings page in my iOS app. The only problem I have is what to use as the link. I have been searching around and apparently you can use:
http://appstore.com/appname
The problem is that I don't know the App Store URL of my app for sure until it gets reviewed and accepted onto the App Store...
Should I take a gamble and use "http://appstore.com/appname" or should I wait for the app to be accepted and then in the next app update add the rate button??
Thanks for your time, Dan.
Once you create your app in ITunes Connect you will get an app ID.
you can use the app ID to refer to your app as follow
http://itunes.apple.com/app/id123456789
where 123456789 is your app ID
or from within your app so it will open the app store app
itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id123456789
you can refer to this Question for more details
This tech note from the iOS Developer Library contains pretty clear rules about how to arrive at the "app name" portion of the link:
To create an App Store Short Link, apply the following rules to your company or app name:
Remove all whitespace
Convert all characters to lower-case
Remove all copyright (©), trademark (™) and registered mark (®) symbols
Replace ampersands ("&") with "and"
Remove most punctuation (See Listing 2 for the set)
Replace accented and other "decorated" characters (ü, å, etc.) with their elemental character (u, a, etc.)
Leave all other characters as-is.
Punctuation characters that must be removed.
!¡"#$%'()*+,-./:;<=>¿?#[]^_`{|}~
There are also some examples to demonstrate the conversion that takes place.
If you follow the rules, you should be safe in using the link for production.
EDIT:
Having said that, in my app I use this scheme to get real fancy and open the Rate page directly from within the app :)
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=<YOURAPPID>&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software&mt=8"]];
Disclaimer: Use at your own risk, of course, I don't think there is any guarantee that this type of link won't break in the future.
Related
I would like to clear a doubt is that, I have to do profanity filter on text so that I have decided to put a file inside the bundle having the list of abusive words ?
Everything is seems to fine. Now I would like to know is that can apple reject my app ?
We never show the list or that files anywhere in side the app.
It is not possible to answer "can apple reject my app?", with a simple "NO.", as apple very clearly says in App Store Review Guidelines
This is a living document; new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this.
However, in the same document, under User Generated Content (section 1.2) apple suggests
Apps with user-generated content present particular challenges,
ranging from intellectual property infringement to anonymous bullying.
To prevent abuse, apps with user-generated content or social
networking services must include:
A method for filtering objectionable material from being posted to the app
Meaning, what you are doing is not only ok, but is an expectation from apple, and your app should be accepted.
So, submit your app for review, and in case your app gets rejected for having these words in the code/bundle, be ready to very clearly explain
how are you using these words
(as you mention in this question) you never show the list or that file to the user anywhere inside the app
In iOS 10, I was able to forward directly from my app to its App Store ratings page by using the following link:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=app_id_here&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software&mt=8
However, in iOS 11 with its all-new App Store where the review page doesn't exist any longer, this seems to be broken now.
Does anyone know an alternative url that opens up the review creator page directly? Or does Apple want us to stop using such links?
You need to add a name after the app parameter of your url (here I use 'itunes-u') :
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itunes-u/id\(appID)?ls=1&mt=8&action=write-review
Also note that the scheme seems to be working properly so you could instead call :
itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itunes-u/id\(appID)?ls=1&mt=8&action=write-review
What you should do is implement the SKStoreReviewController for IOS 10.3 and higher.
It's super simple,
import StoreKit
SKStoreReviewController.requestReview()
It turns out that the system will automatically limit the display of the dialog to 3 times over a 365-day period, so there’s no logic required to check this.
There is however a recommendation that you show the prompts at ‘logical points’ when it is clear the user has made some sort of engagement within the app.
The guides also say you should allow a week or two between repeated displays of the prompt so users don’t feel like they’re being pestered(this will require some thoughtfulness and implementation on your part).
Jordan Holland
First, according to apple guidelines you shouldn't do this,
but you can just add to itunes link of your game &action=write-review and just open this link.
Is hyphen allowed in app name in iTunesConnect?
For example : abcd - efgh
I searched in google found the link https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1892/_index.html,
No where they mentioned whether hyphen(-) allowed as app name in itunes?
It is allowed.. You can enter A-Za-z0-9.-_ (those are the only ones I've tried). However, if you abuse it, Apple can reject the app. Example: Foo___Bar can get rejected. I'm not sure if they allow consecutive characters that are not A-Za-z.
It also depends on the AppStore you submit to. They allow Chinese, Japanese, etc.
You can have AppNames like:
"StackOverflow.com", "Foo.ca", "Scotia-Bank", "Meh_Bar", "Food-Noob.ca", etc..
Note: I do not have an official citation for this. This is just from what I have submitted.
I've been reading a few things about shortening URLs to the App Store so instead of having a really long, unattractive url, you can like: AppStore.com/MyAppOrMyCompanyName
I found that type of url here and there are several ways of linking to dev pages directly in older iOS here...
I'm hoping to use the Appstore.com/ or appsto.re/ scheme to make the URL look better and more readable, as well as cutting out the redirect from safari and link straight to the App Store either from my social media (as well as in my games by pressing a button).
There is some discussion here about shortening the URLs but I can't see how to use this to a developers page (so it shows all apps) instead of a single application.
Where can I find this/how can I get my company url?
You can now make short link URLs in the form of apple.co/#####
In September 2020, Apple released new marketing tools:
App Store Marketing Tools
Search for your app, and then you can generate a short link, QR code, and download app artwork.
Here's the info from the Apple Technical Q&A. Make sure you convert all letters to lowercase and remove all spaces.:
There are three types of App Store Short Links, in two forms, one for iOS apps, another for Mac Apps:
Company Name
iOS: http://appstore.com/<companyname> for example, http://appstore.com/apple
Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/<companyname> for example, http://appstore.com/mac/apple
App Name
iOS: http://appstore.com/<appname> for example, http://appstore.com/keynote
Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/<appname> for example, http://appstore.com/mac/keynote
App by Company
iOS: http://appstore.com/<companyname>/<appname> for example, http://appstore.com/apple/keynote
Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/<companyname>/<appname> for example, http://appstore.com/mac/apple/keynote
Does anyone know the significance of the mt parameter in App Store Links?
Sample link:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=337319445&mt=8
It seems that any value will work, like mt=0, mt=999, etc.
Apple designates a number of different Media Types (mt values):
1 Music
2 Podcasts
3 Audiobooks
4 TV Shows
5 Music Videos
6 Movies
7 iPod Games
8 Mobile Software Applications
9 Ringtones
10 iTunes U
11 E-Books
12 Desktop Apps
So, to answer your question, the "mt=8" in iTunes links simply identifies it as being of type 'Mobile Software Applications'.
Some people noted the you can actually drop the mt part of the link and you still end up on the expected page. This is correct, but on iOS it is helpful to attach the mt tag to tell the OS to what app to switch. When you don't add the mt part and you link to an app the OS will first fire up the iTunes app. This one then figures out that the link points to an app and then switches over to the App Store app.
Therefore it is good practice to enhance the experience for the user by adding the correct mt tag to your iTunes URLs.
Parameters:
I – Identifier: The “I” parameter includes the ID of a specific item
in a collection. For example a track in an album or the episode in
season of a TV show.
MT – Media Type: The MT parameter indicates which type of media the
hyperlink is pointing to. The types and codes you could see are listed
below (however, besides 8, 11, and 12 these parameters are often not
included, or necessary).
1 – Music
2 – Podcasts
3 – Audiobooks
4 – TV Shows
5 – Music Videos
6 – Movies
7 – iPod Games
8 – Mobile Software Applications / loads in the App
Store on iOS
9 – Ringtones
10 – iTunes U
11 – E-Books / loads in the
iBookstore on iOS
12 – Desktop Apps / loads in the Mac App Store in OS
X
Note: The MT parameter is crucial when creating your links for items
not in the iTunes Store. In iOS and OS X this parameter tells the
operating system which specific store to open to handle the link, and
if it’s not built correctly, the customer may see an error instead of
the correct item. For example, you can’t open a Mac App link in the
iTunes Store and if the link points to the incorrect store (or is not
there), there’s an interrupted user experience and a potentially lost
conversion.
LS – Load Store: This parameter, with the value of “1”
(which means “true” in the coding world), tells the Preview Page to
also load the item in the iTunes Store (inside the iTunes desktop
application). If you don’t use either an affiliate parameter or the LS
parameter, the link will only take the user to the Preview Page in
their browser. This isn’t ideal because it forces the user to then go
through another click to actually purchase the product, which
potentially lowers your conversation rate since it’s more work for
them. We recommend always using either the LS parameter or affiliate
the link to alleviate this. Because Preview Pages are desktop
specific (you don’t see them in iOS) this parameter doesn’t appear to
be useful for links that only exist in the mobile ecosystem.
UO –
Unique Origin: This parameter identifies the tool or sources used to
generated the link itself (e.g. RSS Feed Generator, Search API,
Enterprise Partner Feed, etc.). This helps identify where the link
came from for your benefit, but doesn’t actually affect the end user
experience. This can be removed if necessary to tidy up the link.
Affiliate Specific Parameters
AT – Affiliate Token: PHG’s affiliate token.
CT – Campaign Token: Also for PHG. This is a value to help you determine (or set) the “campaign” of the link (similar to the “Enhanced Publisher Interface” from Tradedoubler or the “Signature Tracking” from LinkShare). With GeoRiot, this parameter is set with the TRACK parameter and is synonymous with “Tracking Tag”.
TDUID – TradeDoubler Unique Identifier: This is used for affiliate links that skip the TradeDoubler redirect. For those links, this value is consistent per account but needs to be set up with Tradedoubler in advance.
partnerId: Previously used to identify each of the original affiliate networks, but currently only used for TradeDoubler, which has an ID of 2003. Note that the capitalization of this parameter is important.
affId – Affiliate ID: After a Tradedoubler link is processed via their redirect the final link will include the affid parameter. The value included will be the same as the “a” value in the original Tradedoubler affiliate link that was resolved.
Source
The mt = Media Type. mt=8 == media=software
Valid media types are : movie, podcast, music, musicVideo, audiobook,
shortFilm, tvShow, software, all
presumably, movie = 1, podcast=2, music=3, musicVideo=4 and so on until software=8
I think anything other numeric value (>8) than those valid ones will return all.
I USED to think you could strip the mt and ls parameters without any impact.
I just discovered a case where that failed... it worked find on iPhones without the parameters but not on iPads. On an iPad it launched iTunes, but never brought you to the right app.
I'm not sure why... but, I put them back in and it works fine on iPhone and iPad.
I didn't experiment with stripping just the mt vs. the ls. I suspect it's the ls=1 that is the culprit... though I'm not sure why iPhone would be more forgiving than iPad.
The app on Appstore has specific URL format
http://itunes.apple.com/[country-code]/app/[app-name]/id+[id_value]?mt=[1...12]
country-code can be us for united states, in for india etc
mt stands for Media Type
Value for mt can be anything from 1 to 12 and each assigned to specific category
i. 8 for iOS apps
ii. 12 for Mac apps
When you've got a unique id already like:
itunes.apple.com/us/app/rogo/id400118698?mt=8
it seems to work fine without it, ie:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rogo/id400118698
In this new URL format, only the id matters - the app name "rogo" is ignored.
Note that some browsers will respect preferences for handling different media types -- ie it can have unintended/unexpected consequences if you strip it.