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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.

rmaddy
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Supertecnoboff
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2 Answers2

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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

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Kaiusee
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  • I like this answer more. Thank you. – Supertecnoboff May 20 '14 at 19:32
  • So from the app onto the app store I use the "itms-apps" link? What's the first link for then? Do they both do exactly the same thing? – Jet Apr 13 '15 at 20:30
  • @jet the first link is the direct link to your app from the app store when you want to open it from the browser (safari on your phone) which will open the app store app. But for your app you should use the second link "itms-apps" – Kaiusee Apr 13 '15 at 20:38
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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.

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user1459524
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  • Ah thank you sir. While I have tried this and it seems to work on any app (as it should), I did notice a few apps were it didn't work... hmmm – Supertecnoboff May 20 '14 at 16:33