How to Link to your App in the App Store (WHY WAS THIS SO HARD?!)
This is, historically, one of my favorite iOS topics because of the ridiculous number of solutions to it: What if I haven’t published the app before? What if I don’t want it to go to iTunes?! Can I link without redirects??
So here’s the final solution for every conceivable situation, only very recently solved by Apple. (Finally!) Where a specific name is necessary I’ll use Task List Pro and Rapture In Venice as the example since each is a messy name with spaces, but you should swap in your own app or publisher name, obviously.
Linking to an app via App Store/iTunes:
http://appstore.com/TaskListPro
Linking to developer/author via App Store/iTunes:
http://appstore.com/RaptureInVenice
Is the app is already in the App Store, this handy Apple page will generate links for you that work in a browser when on desktop:
http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/
Apple has let this be an “issue” for too long, fostering endless threads about links that redirect and what to do about punctuations. Finally, they made their Link Maker, but that only led to more confusion because it doesn’t address apps that are not yet in the App Store. (What do you do if you’re creating v1.0 of your app?) Contrast this with Android where things have always been much simpler:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.centura.emm
Google may have taken a long time to get their UI right, and they still can’t solve their versioning problem, but they’ve always gotten developer-oriented things like this right at least.
John Blanco
John Blanco is a freelance iOS developer living in Lakewood, Colorado. He's been developing mobile apps for over 15 years, beginning in the medieval days of Java ME and Blackberry and all the way through iPhone and Android! He's led development on dozens of apps across a wide variety of domains such as retail, vision, orthotics, games, sports, and more!
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John Blanco
I've been writing mobile apps professionally for 10 years: Blackberry, Java, ME, iPhone, Android. I've gotten dozens of apps into the various App Stores for dozens of clients, big and small.
My current specialty is in iOS and Xamarin development. If you need an app written at a fixed price or just need a hourly developer to give a boost to your current team, I might be your guy.
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