How can browser support for itms links be detected?

Question

How can I detect whether a user's browser supports iTunes Music Store (itms://) links?

If the browser supports it, I'd like to offer an itms:// link, so that it will open directly in iTunes. But for browsers that don't, I'd link to the object using https://itunes.apple.com.

I thought about offering itms:// only to Safari, but then realized that (at least on a Mac) Chrome also seems to support itms://. Also, detecting Safari seems a bit fragile. If possible I'd prefer to detect feature support rather than checking for a specific browser.

See the answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3411875/how-to-detect-whether-a-protocol-is-supported-through-web-browser — Lawson, Apr 17 '13 at 14:40
It also appears that this JS script might work: https://github.com/n0s/itunesdetect/blob/master/itunesdetect.js — Lawson, Apr 17 '13 at 14:42

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

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I ended up using this script, which I founded immediately after posting, and which @Lawson also recommended.

Update: does not seem to work with IE on Windows 8. It fails to detect iTunes integration on that platform.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

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answered Apr 17 '13 at 16:14

George Armhold

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score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 28 '14 at 11:47

If you know how to use "Inspect Element" on Google Chrome, etc, you would find the following javascript that uses a function called its.detect.iTunesDetected().

External scripts needed are from apple's website:
https://itunes.apple.com/htmlResources/EF6B/web-storefront-base.js
https://itunes.apple.com/htmlResources/EF6B/web-storefront-preview.js

<script>
        if(its.detect.itunesDetected()) alert("iTunes Installed");
</script>

Example Code.

Hope this helps.

How can browser support for itms links be detected?

2 Answers2