Posts tagged linking

While working on an update for one of my games, I ran into a problem where I wanted to create a link to every app on the App Store that I had written. Each of my games has a button for ‘More Games’ that currently just takes you to my website, where you can see the games, but what if this could be tailored to go directly to the app store page itself? This generates better install follow through, as the viewer can simply click the Install/Purchase buttons, without having to go anywhere else!

How To List All Of Your Apps On Google Play

Directing the viewer to a list of all of your published apps on Google Play is as simple as making a link to your Publisher Name, such as:

market://search?q=pub:Andy+Kellett

Or, if you wish to do it via the web, you can link to this (clickable) link:

http://play.google.com/store/search?q=pub:Andy+Kellett

If your Publisher Name uses spaces, replace them with a + instead. Feel free to check out some of my Android games at the store!

How To List All Of Your Apps On Amazon Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire runs Android, however it does not run any of the Google services at all, and many developers make the mistake of accidentally using some of the services in their apps, which do cause problems. Nothing is more embarrassing when you release a lite version of your game, only to have the link to upgrade to the paid version not work. The Amazon method is extremely simple:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/dl/android?p=com.fishguygames.WordSearchHunterFree&showAll=1

The com.fishguygames.WordSearchHunterFree is the package name of the originating request, although Amazon doesn’t appear to do much with this initially that you can see, it lets the system know where the request was generated from. You can also manually enter the above URL in a regular browser window, which will generate a new address that can also be used, such as the following:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=mas_dl?_encoding=UTF8&field-brandtextbin=FishGuyGames&node=2350149011

Both are 100% compatible from launch. If launched on a Kindle device, the 1st link will give you the option of viewing the app list on the web, or in the Amazon App Store. The 2nd link is only viewable on the web, even if launched on the Kindle, so for use within your App, I reccomend the top link. On Non-Kindle devices, the top link is auto-converted to the 2nd one for display purposes.

How To List All your Apps On iOS/Apple

Follow these simple steps to do the same thing on iOS for your Apple products:

Step 1 – Find your app in the App Store. Right click on your Publisher name, and choose Copy Link to copy the address to the clipboard, so you can paste it in the next step.

Step 2 – Paste in the link, and change the http:// header (the link in the example is highlighted above) to itms://, as this will stop the app from redirecting as many as 3 times, and instead use the iTunes Store app directly, making the experience faster for the end user. This link can be used in any app and shouldn’t ever change.

Step 3 – Test the code on different devices, to ensure it works the way you expect it to! If you wish to have the same effect from your website, just keep the URL as it was.

If you would like to play some of the various games I have written for iOS, Check Out My List Of Games for more information! This should open a window, which will then open your iTunes and take you directly to my developer pages!

I hope this post helps you!  Andy Kellett