How to detect the active iTunes store on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad?

Question

I'd like to be able to determine which store the user connects to from inside my app, so that I can direct them to some appropriate content for their device AND store. Does anyone know how to get this information?

Basically, if the user is in the UK, and connects to the UK store, I want my function/method to return GB, if in Korea, I want KR, Australia = AU etc. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The approach of getting the country code of the user's locale will work ... but only if the user's iTunes store is the same as their locale. This won't always be the case.

If you create an in-app purchase item, you can use Apple's StoreKit APIs to find out the user's actual iTunes country even if it's different from their device locale. Here's some code that worked for me:

- (void) requestProductData
{
    SKProductsRequest *request= [[SKProductsRequest alloc] initWithProductIdentifiers:
                                 [NSSet setWithObject: PRODUCT_ID]];
    request.delegate = self;
    [request start];
}

- (void) productsRequest:(SKProductsRequest *)request didReceiveResponse:(SKProductsResponse *)response
{
    NSArray *myProducts = response.products;
    for (SKProduct* product in myProducts) {
        NSLocale* storeLocale = product.priceLocale;
        storeCountry = (NSString*)CFLocaleGetValue((CFLocaleRef)storeLocale, kCFLocaleCountryCode);
        NSLog(@"Store Country = %@", storeCountry);
    }

    [request release];

    // If product request didn't work, fallback to user's device locale
    if (storeCountry == nil) {
        CFLocaleRef userLocaleRef = CFLocaleCopyCurrent();
        storeCountry = (NSString*)CFLocaleGetValue(userLocaleRef, kCFLocaleCountryCode);
    }

    // Now we're ready to start creating URLs for the itunes store
    [super start];
}

Answer 2

A hard way to get this function is to set up up a single app for every app store country. Each app holds it's own country store information. This assumes, that a user sticks to one store, which should be true for most people.

Answer 3

I suggest you try iTunes deep links. For example, http://itunes.com/apps/appname should take the user to the local App Store where she spends money.

Answer 4

I need the same functionality. At the moment I'm considering reading using data from NSLocale as default, but adding a setting in settings.app for user to customise this if it does not match.

This function is taken from an answer to another question of mine.

- (NSString *)getUserCountry
{
    NSLocale *locale = [NSLocale currentLocale];
    return [locale objectForKey: NSLocaleCountryCode];
}

Answer 5

You should probably use

[[userDefaults dictionaryRepresentation] objectForKey:@"NSLocaleCode"];

This will return a language code like en_US or en_UK or en_AU or even zh_CN, zh_MY, jp_JP and so on.

Parse the correct codes which you support and direct them accordingly.