How to launch another app from an iPhone app

Question

I am working on a map application in my iPhone app.

I have a button go.

When the user clicks this button in this method I want to check if user has installed the waze application on his iphone. If yes then navigate to waze application otherwise open iPhone's default map app.

Answer 1

Try to do this way :

NSString *wazeAppURL = @"waze://";
NSString *mapsAppURL = @"maps://";

BOOL canOpenURL = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:wazeAppURL]];

NSString *url = canOpenURL ? wazeAppURL : mapsAppURL;
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:url]];

Here, canOpenURL allows you to test if the Waze app is installed on your iPhone. if iPhone can open the url waze:// it means you already have the app and it will launch it. Otherwise it will launch the default Maps app. Safari won't be called.

Answer 2

To open an app you need to call

BOOL canOpenURL = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] 
                       canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"app://"]];
if ( canOpenUrl ) [[UIApplication sharedApplication] 
                       openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:url]];

To find all the url, go to this page: http://handleopenurl.com/

For waze in particular, http://handleopenurl.com/scheme/waze

hope this helps.

Answer 3

Note that on iOS you can also navigate to Google Maps -- and pass along the query string or geopoint. Here's one example of navigating to a specific geopoint:

if (self.mapView.userLocation.location) {
    NSString *urlAsString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"comgooglemaps://?q=%f,%f", self.mapView.userLocation.location.coordinate.latitude, self.mapView.userLocation.location.coordinate.longitude];
    if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlAsString]]) {
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlAsString]];
    }
} 

Just a suggestion to enhance the user experience.