Get iOS iTunes App Store ID of an app itself?

Question

Could an iOS app get the iTunes link of itself? Is there an API for this?

Solution 1

Here is the answer.

1. The app requests http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?bundleId=com.clickgamer.AngryBirds
2. Find the "version": "2.1.0" and "trackId": 343200656 in the JSON response.

Warning: This API is undocumented, Apple could change it without notice.

References:

[1] https://github.com/nicklockwood/iVersion/blob/master/iVersion/iVersion.m#L705
[2] https://stackoverflow.com/a/8841636/41948
[3] http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStoreServices.woa/wa/wsLookup?id=343200656&mt=8
[4] http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStoreServices.woa/ws/wsSearch?term=+Angry+Birds&country=US&media=software&entity=softwareDeveloper&limit=6&genreId=&version=2&output=json&callback=jsonp1343116626493

Solution 2

You way use iTunes Search API to look up your and other apps on the App Store.

Docs: http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/documentation/itunes-store-web-service-search-api.html

Example: http://itunes.apple.com/search?media=software&country=us&term=raining%20weather

iTunes may return more then one result, but you can filter results by bundleId. trackViewUrl will contain iTunes URL to your app. trackId will contain app's ID.

Comments

[Aleksejs Mjaliks]

What is your goal? What do you want to achieve by getting this link?

[est]

@AleksejsMjaliks By checking for self-updates of course!

[Stephen Darlington]

Not completely true. Once you have an appId (i.e., after your app has been created in iTC) you can create one of the long, unreadable URLs. The shorter, human readable itunes.com ones probably won't work until the app is on the App Store.

[est]

search is not exactly a reliable way to get accurate IDs, right?

[Aleksejs Mjaliks]

Right! Under some circumstances results may not contain your app's ID. E.g., your app hasn't been indexed yet.

[est]

Check out what I found! stackoverflow.com/a/11626157/41948

[Koraktor]

This API is (no longer) undocumented. – apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/documentation/…

[est]

@Koraktor Yes, lookup by id is documented, however, lookup by bundleId is not.

[canibeanartist]

Old and closed question but I wanted to contribute a way to get the ID from iOS itself. From either the homescreen or the app store, you can ‘share’ apps which will present the share sheet which has an option to copy the url.