Technical Q&A QA1629

Launching the App Store from an iOS application

Q: How do I launch the App Store from my iOS app? Also, how do I link to my application on the store?

A: You can launch the App Store from your app by using either the UIApplication class or the SKStoreProductViewController class.

Using UIApplication

UIApplication's open(_:options:completionHandler:) method handles links to applications and media by launching the appropriate store application passed in the URL object. Follow the steps below to obtain a link to an app, music, movie, or any other item sold on Apple's online stores (iTunes, App Store, and iBooks) and link to it from your iOS app:

Launch iTunes on your computer.
Search for the item you want to link to.
Right-click or control-click on the item's name in iTunes, then choose "Copy Link" from the pop-up menu.
In your application, create an URL object with the copied iTunes URL, then pass this object to UIApplication' s open(_:options:completionHandler:) method to open your item in a store.

See Listing 1 for an example that launches the App Store app using UIApplication.

Listing 1 Launching the App Store using UIApplication.

 // App Store URL.

 let appStoreLink = "https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8"

 /* First create a URL, then check whether there is an installed app that can

    open it on the device. */

if let url = URL(string: appStoreLink), UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(url) {

   // Attempt to open the URL.

   UIApplication.shared.open(url, options: [:], completionHandler: {(success: Bool) in

      if success {

          print("Launching \(url) was successful")

}})

Using the SKStoreProductViewController class

The SKStoreProductViewController class allows you to present an Apple store (iTunes, App Store, and iBooks) from within your app. See Listing 2 that demonstrates how to launch the App Store from an app.

Listing 2 Launching the App Store using SKStoreProductViewController.

import StoreKit

class ViewController: UIViewController, SKStoreProductViewControllerDelegate {

    // Create a store product view controller.

    var storeProductViewController = SKStoreProductViewController()

    override func viewDidLoad() {

        super.viewDidLoad()

        storeProductViewController.delegate = self

    // Launches the store product view controller.

    @IBAction func launchStoreProductViewController(_ sender: UIButton) {

        // Create a product dictionary using the App Store's iTunes identifer.

        let parametersDict = [SKStoreProductParameterITunesItemIdentifier: 375380948]

        /* Attempt to load it, present the store product view controller if success

            and print an error message, otherwise. */

        storeProductViewController.loadProduct(withParameters: parametersDict, completionBlock: { (status: Bool, error: Error?) -> Void in

            if status {

               self.present(self.storeProductViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)

            else {

               if let error = error {

               print("Error: \(error.localizedDescription)")

          }}})

    // Let's dismiss the presented store product view controller.

    func productViewControllerDidFinish(_ viewController: SKStoreProductViewController) {

       viewController.presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)

Document Revision History

Date	Notes
2017-06-14	Editorial update.
2014-03-13	Removed reference to catching and processing redirect iTunes links; iTunes no longer supports redirect-style hosts.
2012-02-07	Updated code listings.
2010-01-09	Removed reference to phobos.apple.com URLs, which are no longer needed for direct linking to the App Store.
2009-10-27	Fixed typo.
2009-01-27	New document that describes how to launch the App Store from native iOS apps.