Is there a service that allows me to put a form on my site that will send a link to my iOS app to a user?
User goes to my site
User inserts their cell phone number in a field
User receives a text message with the link to download my app
Does this make sense? Is there a better way? I've seen this before but can't remember where...
Currently do people really just take out their iPhones, open the app store, search for the app name to download it?
PS: Before posting I searched Google and this site but didn't find any answer.
Not quite what you're looking for, but probably a lot easier for you to do: You could create a QR-Code that contains a link to your app in the App Store. Then people can scan it with their phones (there are tons of popular apps that can do this), and when it opens the URL, the user will be redirected to the app store.
Just use the https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/[...] link from iTunesConnect for your app.
Related
I'm in the process of updating my iOS app, and one feature that I'd love to add would be the ability to create links (to send via email, or for social media) that would allow users who have downloaded the app to be taken to a certain section of the app, and users who haven't to be taken to the app store page for my app. I also want it to take desktop users to the itunes page for my app.
Now, I've been looking into url schemes as I think this is the way forward, and have managed to create a custom url scheme that will indeed take users to different parts of my app. However, I'm struggling to find a way to check if the app has been installed, and what device the user is on etc.
Would I need to use a server to redirect them to the correct place?
Thanks!
I found out the best way to do it is with universal links, introduced in iOS 9.
https://blog.branch.io/how-to-setup-universal-links-to-deep-link-on-apple-ios-9/
I know that an app can be linked to directly from an URL so that when it is clicked on my phone, the AppStore app will open and guide me to the app in question but is it possible to link to the 'Featured' page (or better still the 'Redeem' page of AppStore from a link?
The scenario is I send a promo code for AppXYZ out in an email and the recipient can click that email link and be taken to (a) the AppStore app or (b) the AppStore app Redeem page passing the code through.
I know the link for something similar in iTunes but not AppStore. Can't seem to find any info other than links to specific apps (which I don't want).
iTunes: itmss://buy.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/freeProductCodeWizard?code=THE_CODE
Thanks in advance.
If you want to redeem a code on the App Store it nevertheless always goes through the link you provided, but correctly spelled:
itms://buy.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/freeProductCodeWizard?code=THE_CODE
It opens the iTunes app on iOS with the code filled in, the user still has to tap on redeem as it's still a transaction. If he does so, the app will automatically be downloaded (just tested it with the latest iOS version)
I tried to copy a couple of links from the desktop iTunes and checked, if they work on iOS, but the answer is no. E.g.:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/collection/editors-choice/id25204?fcId=531794418&mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?fcId=1188885481&genreIdString=36&mediaTypeString=Mobile+Software+Applications
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?fcId=554381198&genreIdString=36&mediaTypeString=Mobile+Software+Applications
(Also tried it with itms:// instead of https://)
I want to implement the referral program in my iOS app, like if an user refer the link to some of his friend to download my app and that user download the app from app store my clicking on that link, it will give some bonus to the user which refer the link.
Short Google search and you already get tons of hits:
Great tool is Branch.io: https://dev.branch.io/features/referral-programs/guide/ios/
But there are also other resources/tools out there like:
AppVirality: https://github.com/appvirality/AppVirality-iOS-SDK
Viraltrics: http://viraltrics.com/
If you are looking to do it on your own, you'll find a great concept here: How to implement referral program in mobile Apps for both Android and iPhone
I want my app to create a new Facebook group chat with certain people that opens either on Facebook's site in Safari or in the native Facebook app when the user presses a button. I want Facebook to handle the whole chat and my app only to initiate it somehow in the cleanest and least involved way possible. My app already uses the Facebook SDK to open an active FBSession, so I've already got login credentials.
Looking around online and in Facebook's docs, I can't find anything that suits my needs. The closest thing I found was in this answer containing a list of Facebook app URLs you can connect to that open the Facebook app to certain pages. There's "fb://chat/(initWithUID:)" and "fb://messaging/compose/(initWithUID:)". However, not only is there no explanation on how to use these, but people say that Facebook has changed these URLs (and does not have any documentation on them), so they don't work anymore unless I reverse-engineer new URLs (which could change again). Ugh, so close!
I also found examples on starting chats with the Facebook Chat API, but that involves logging into Facebook using some networking framework then writing my own GUI and model for sending messages, which I am only prepared to do as a last resort. There should be some way to let the Facebook app or website do all that. Does anyone know how I can do this?
I've found something very close, but I still don't see a way to make my app initialize it with the desired group of friends:
The Facebook SDK has a message dialog that can appear for sending messages to friends. This isn't exactly what I wanted but is good enough because it means that all the programming is already done for me by Facebook, and users should be able to see these messages on https://facebook.com and the Facebook apps. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ios/share#message-dialog
My company has an app (iOS and Android), to which the following scenarios applies. I'm trying to help point my engineers and product team in the right direction.
When one of our users clicks on a content link from one of our emails, or Tweets or Facebook posts, and they're on their mobile device, we prompt the user with a link to download our app. This is similar to what many apps do, including LinkedIn (see i.stack.imgur.com/glSgJ.png).
I imagine this is mildly effective of driving awareness and downloads of a native app, for new users who came in from social media and various web sources. However, it is not helpful at all for a user like me who already has the app!
1) clicking "No Thanks" keeps me on the mobile web (when I want to be in the native app), and
2) clicking "Download the App" takes me to iTunes App Store page for an app I already own.
SUPER ANNOYING. As a result, I have to manually open the app, and search for the content in question. I'm guessing most users don't do this. More importantly, depending on the UI/UX of the app, I may never get there!
Again, I know we are handling mobile web visits in the same way many other companies (including LinkedIn) do, but it seems we are leaving a lot of potential native app use on the table. I want our engineers to build that elusive 3rd option, "Open In App".
Spotify and Rdio have solved this very nicely. Here are deep content links (in the case of these companies, to a specific song) for the two apps respectively:
http://open.spotify.com/track/2SldBUTJSK6xz43i8DZ5r2
http://rd.io/x/QF3NK0JKWmk
If you have a moment, first grab the free version of Rdio or Spotify apps. Then, if you open those links above from an iOS device, you will see how nice the experience is, for existing native app users: Rdio has a nice "Tap to open in Rdio" link (http://i.stack.imgur.com/B7PuE.png), and Spotify's link is even more clear, "I have Spotify" (http://i.stack.imgur.com/Q3IV6.png). Both apps also include a link to download the app, for new app users. More importantly, both apps cookie the user: future visits to links (whether from email, Twitter, Facebook, etc) on mobile web automatically open the app, instead of prompting you to choose each time. SUPER CONVENIENT.
Questions:
1) How do they accomplish this? I'm initially only concerned about iOS (on which I tested this), but this same situation should apply to Android.
2) Why aren't more apps doing this? It doesn't seem like rocket science, so am I missing a key reason why this might be a bad idea? Half of my problem is convincing the use case.
3) Why don't I see discussions about this technique? I've searched a ton for an iOS solution. I come up with a lot of discussion about URL registrations (mainly app-to-app), but no one actually referring to the type of scenario I describe (mobile web prompt to open native app).
It seems that with minimal engineering, app developers could dramatically increase native app use, converting from mobile web. :)
Android supports deep linking. Please refer to
http://developer.android.com/training/app-indexing/deep-linking.html
Tapstream's deferred deep links can send users to specific views within apps (iOS only), even when the app isn't yet installed on their device.