Opening Native App. from Safari

Question

I know iPhone apps. operate like sandboxes. Meaning that they don't have access to other apps' files. And I have also managed to open a website in Safari from a Native App() using:

 openURL:[NSURL URLWithString: Website_Address] 

There are four Native apps that I have seen being opened from safari.

1. App Store app
2. Maps app
3. Email app
4. Phone app

Is there a method of opening my own app from an iphone website in Safari(maybe some html/xml/php etc code)?

Solution

Yes, you can do this by binding your application to a custom URI scheme and then creating a link with your custom URI scheme which, when selected, will open your app.

To register the custom URI scheme you'll need to modify the info.plist file and assign your custom value to the URL Identifier object.

You can review the iPhone OS Programming Guide Apple developer documentation for further details or this article which details the step-by-step process in-depth.

Or you can check out the official documentation from Apple.