Question

Is it possible to open the App Store app from within my app and run a search?

I’m looking to see if there’s an appstore:// type URL that I could use, in the same way that mailto: and sms: open Mail and SMS respectively.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Edit – more info:

I’ve been trying using UIApplication’s openURL: method, passing various forms of phobos and iTunes URLs, with no luck so far.

Some may be aware that you can right-click links in iTunes on the desktop and copy links to certain pages. I copied the link to a page that listed all the apps for a particular company.

Some may also be aware that you can do a search in the App Store app on the iPhone for a company name and the search results will be all the apps owned by that company.

I’m trying to achieve that via a link from my app…

Using the link copied from iTunes on the desktop simply opens Safari, and then opens the iTunes app, and finally ends with a “Cannot connect to iTunes Store” message. This is regardless of whether or not the URL starts with phobos or itunes.

Here is the link I’ve been trying to use (ID trimmed)

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=someId

Any ideas would be awesome, thanks.

Answer 1

Erika Sadun explains how to build an App Store search link here.