iTunes Store RSS feed by Artist Id? - ios

I'm having trouble configuring the URL to load an RSS feed of a particular artist's music into my app.
I'm using itunes XMLPerformace test Xcode project available on dev.apple. I simply want to change:
[NSURL URLWithString:#"http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wpa/MRSS/newreleases/limit=300/rss.xml"];
into something that will load an artist's songs into the table view instead of the newreleases.
This resource seems to suggest additional feed generator options are availble, just not readily.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/blog/introduction---rss-feed-generator.html
Has anyone come across this?

I just found out apple only offers select RSS feeds. Thus, I can not do it this way.
However, parsing a JSON request from the itunes store api appears to be the best solution anyways.
Itunes Store Api
Parsing the request from there was a breeze.

Related

How to track traffic in Google Analytics from Apple News rss feed?

I am trying to track traffic coming from Apple News through Google Analytics, submit in RSS format. After online search I found that only if it's submitted in Apple New format. And that RSS feed is unreliable to track with GA.
Is there any other way to do this?
The first link you provided shows that the browser dimension is set as AppleNews for those visitors (I've never used Apple News before, but I'm guessing it's an in-app browser).
This gives you a few options:
Use a secondary dimension of Browser with an advanced search for AppleNews in your Acquisition report.
Create a segment where the Browser matches AppleNews to make it available for all reports.
Create a find/replace filter when the Browser matches AppleNews to change the acquisition data itself (source/medium). You'll want to be careful with his because it permanently alters your data!
The other thought I had is that maybe it's possible to use UTM query strings only when submitting to RSS? If the data is scraping your website you could programmatically update the RSS URL to include UTM parameters to track the source/medium that way (this may have varying success because of other scrapers outside of Apple News).
If you manually submit to Apple News, you could manually UTM tag your URLs so the source/medium is forced to Apple News.

Launching iTunes Store within App with Search

I'm creating an iOS radio station app, and I can't find a solution to what I thought was a simple problem. If my radio station plays an song/album people want to buy, how can I just launch the iTunes Store and have it open with a search results for that track or album?
I know I can use the Apple Search API to get a json of the search results and parse that for the best search results, and I know I can open the iTunes store with https://itunes.apple.com/ (if I try to append a search string to this, I get the metadata back) or with SKStoreProductViewController if I know the product ID.
But is there a way to simply open the iTunes Store to open with search results for a song or album (or both) without having to evaluate the search metadata and send them to one (perhaps wrong) product?
Thanks!
You can do this using URL Scheme's and a tool called iTunes Link Maker. Documentation can be found for iTunes on Apple's website here
The iTunes URL scheme is used to link to content on the iTunes Music
Store. The iTunes URL format is complicated to construct, so you
create it using an online tool called iTunes Link Maker. The tool
allows you to select a country destination and media type, and then
search by song, album, or artist. After you select the item you want
to link to, it generates the corresponding URL.
http://linkmaker.itunes.apple.com/

Open iTunes Store from iOS app

I have an app that plays music and I need to implement iTunes search. So, for example, I need to find song by Pink Floyd called Time. How can I open iTunes Store on iOS with results of search query "Pink Floyd - Time"?
I know it's possible, since there is an app in App Store, called VK App, a client for social network that does exactly that.
And do I need to somehow request approval of this function by Apple?
For loading dynamically you can use like this example, it will open the itunes store with the searched item: #"itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?artistTerm=pink%20floyd&songTerm=High%20Hopes"
Also, you can perform a search and parse the result (a json) to provide a more specific link using this web service:
https://itunes.apple.com/search?term=pink+floyd%20high%20hopes
Here is the link for the API: http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/documentation/itunes-store-web-service-search-api.html
I am using the second approach on one of my app's. Works good
Wish it helps
Apple has a link maker designed to do just that.
Here's the link to it.

Get other application icon image in my Application

In my application, I am showing some applications list which are on app store.
I want to get those application's icon image in my application.
I just search but not getting any relevant post on this.
Is there any way to get it? Apple allows to get? Please suggest if there is any way.
Thanks for the help.
apple has an JSON Service for that, where you get a lot of meta data for every application
This is the URL for the Facebook App
http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=284882215
and this a the URL for the Facebook and Twitter App combined:
http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=284882215,333903271
in the JSON you will find URLs of the app icons in attributes artworkUrl60, artworkUrl512 and artworkUrl100
"artworkUrl100":"http://a1170.phobos.apple.com/us/r30/Purple4/v4/37/7e/9e/377e9e31-388e-8d10-e414-f478a2f18d29/mzl.pacepjmm.png"
unfortunately those app icons are squared and don't have the rounded corners, you will get app icon how the developer uploaded it.
UPDATE: get data for other countries
if you want to get the data for different countries you can just add the country code in between e.g.
for Germany: http://itunes.apple.com/de/lookup?id=284882215
for France: http://itunes.apple.com/fr/lookup?id=284882215
I think there is an tool to generate AppStore Custom RSS Feeds, it returns links and icons, bu i had never worked on it.
iTunes RSS, With the iTunes Store RSS Feed Generator you can create custom RSS feeds to fit your specific needs. Specify feed length, genres, types, and more.

Import data from free app to paid app

I developed a free application where you can save some user data. Now I developed a paid version without any ads and some other new features. I would like to have the data from the free app version transferred! How can I achieve this the best way?
Edit: you can save data of a played game with some infos (gamescore, playername, date etc) via NSKeyedArchiver. You can see all your saved data in a table view. I would like to see these stored data in the paid version as well, but how can I share the data? The given answers don't seem to be the straightest way!
I've never done this before but the way I can think of on how to do this is by first getting the location of your file (if it is Core Data, it is in your Documents folder) and then depending on how you want to import data either:
Attach the file to an email and have the user email himself and then open the file with your app
Send the file to a server, which then the user can access and download the file
A good starting point is Apple's documentation on NSFileManager and this tutorial. This other one deals with preparing for sharing files and custom extensions.
Modify both apps to register for and handle custom URLs. Have the paid app try to send a request URL to launch the free app. If the free app handles the URL it can send data back using the paid app's URL.

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