Is it possible to test ios smart app banner on an unpublished ios app?

Asked 11/8, 2014 at 13:25 Answered 2/12, 2016 at 7:24

I have to test the smart app banners in an application, which is still in development, especially passing some 'app-argument' to this app. The application exists on iTunes Connect, and his status is of course still "Prepare for Upload".

The banner is on my website's home page. But when I try to reach this page with my iPhone (Safari), the banner shows up, totally empty, and disappears after about 1 second...

Here is the banner code on my website:

<meta content="app-id=myAppId, app-argument=myScheme://123456" name="apple-itunes-app">

Is it possible to test this smart app banners before publishing the applications on the store?

Redintegrate answered 11/8, 2014 at 13:25 Comment(3)

Share your code, probably you call some method to get rid the bannerview – Sedulous 11/8, 2014 at 13:53

Have you tried running this on a device? – Stephanystephen 11/8, 2014 at 14:2

Yes of course, the link you put in your comment describes an operation with an existing app on the AppStore, but in my case, I'm developing the first release. So I haven't any previous builds on the AppStore. – Redintegrate 11/8, 2014 at 14:6

The answer is sadly, no. You must first publish your app before the smart app banner will work.

But you CAN test Universal Links without a published app. You just have to have Apple crawl your website after you set it up.

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/AppSearch/UniversalLinks.html

Salchunas answered 8/10, 2015 at 5:57 Comment(0)

As of now, Xcode 8 and iOS 10, I have tried all the methods but Cannot Debug the smart banners URL that is being opened, as it needs the store versions of the application.

I have found a workaround of this, and have tested my application using this.

Apart from the <meta ...> tag I have also added a link button on the page that uses the scheme to open the app.

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=xxxx,pt=xxxxx,ct=xxxxx,app-argument=myappscheme://www.mymobilesite.com/link/detailpage?query=x">
    <title>Banner Debug Sample</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Visit <a href="myappscheme://www.mymobilesite.com/link/detailpage?query=x">App Using Scheme</a>.</p>
  </body>
</html>

With this link I can debug the Dev builds and works well.

Though this only works when the app has registered a scheme for itself, but just for testing we can register a dummy scheme say appscheme:// and replace http:// scheme with dummy scheme, test it, and then revert links from app scheme:// to http://

Wild answered 2/12, 2016 at 7:24 Comment(0)

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