Comments on: Register URLs in Mobile Safari Dynamically?

By: Bobby Beckmann

Bobby Beckmann — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:26:54 +0000

I’ve been trying to get something like this working for quite awhile where the user is shown a webpage, and if they don’t have the app installed, it entices them to load it. The big difference in my approach is that I wanted it to work even when there was no network connection. I’ve got quite a javascript hack that does it. If you want to see what I mean, on your iphone, go to http://localb.net/gohorns and you’ll go through the “install” process, which installs a webclip on your phone that when launched will try to start the app, and if it fails will ask you to go to itunes to download the app. It isn’t perfect, and the UI leaves quite a bit to be desired, but the concept is good enough to get the point across.

I’d love any feedback on the approach!

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:42:03 +0000

@Dominic: The server detects if it’s an iPhone and if the iPhone has the cookie set that indicates that the app is installed on the device. If both conditions are true, then the server redirects to the custom protocol.

By: Dominic Tancredi

Dominic Tancredi — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:40:56 +0000

Awesome feature! We’ve added custom protocols to our app ComicVille. So when a user clicks on the link from their safari, it loads the app and creates a new webcomic link.

But the difficulty has been figuring out how to register the protocol somewhere if a user doesn’t have the app yet… But if it involves a cookie being set and url redirect…

So the url actually opens to a page, and the server detects if the browser is an iPhone, if it is, redirect to the custom protocol?

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:11:20 +0000

@Brian: Thank you for the insights! I didn’t realize that cookies in Mobile Safari were that persistent. But that makes sense. Just to test it, I deleted my cookies in Settings, and lo and behold, the MobileMe galleries now display in Safari again. Time to bring our server team into the loop so that we can add this cool feature to our apps.

By: Brian Tunning

Brian Tunning — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:34:16 +0000

This feature is built using all off-the-shelf APIs. When the device follows the gallery.me.com URL, and the web server detects a cookie set earlier, the web site redirects to a custom protocol registered in the plist (gallery://).

This is done because it is not known if the recipient of a tell a friend email will be viewing the mail on an iPhone with the Gallery app installed, or a desktop machine.

By: Matthew Frederick

Matthew Frederick — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:12:31 +0000

The mid-stream registration is cool, and indeed would be great to have access to. One http URL that’s already registered by default is maps.google.com, which sends you to the Maps app.