Using Custom URI Schemes

One of the most powerful capabilities of iOS is the ability to define custom URI schemes for your applications. This provides the ability to launch your apps from other apps, or even by simply clicking on a link in an e-mail or a web browser. For instance, you can use a mail-to link to launch the user's e-mail app and create a new e-mail message, like this:

mailto://

In the same way, you can define a custom URI scheme in the info.plist of your application to register a particular scheme with your application, like this:

acmecorpsales://

Once you register the custom URI scheme, anytime the device navigates to a URL with that custom scheme, your application will launch, and the entire URL will be passed to the application. You can access this on the UIApplicationDelegate of your app.