iPhone 2.1: App Store Linking No Longer Works

Posted on September 20th, 2008. Written by Arron.

Since updating to iPhone 2.1, I’ve noticed the nice little linking system Apple had between their ‘Phobos’ server and the mobile App Store, has completely collapsed …

The Problem
Previous to 2.1, Apple’s Phobos server located at [http://phobos.apple.com/] would talk to the mobile App Store. For example if I was sent an App Store link to view the application Cleartune, it would look something like this:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=286799607&mt=8

Now, lets talk previously, first. Previous to 2.1, If I received the above link in an e-mail viewed through Mail.app on my iPhone, I’d be able to give it a tap and immediately iPhone OS would switch out to the mobile App Store, locate the application I’d requested, and finally display it’s page giving me options to download and buy it. This is unfortunately no longer the case.

After 2.1
iPhone OS 2.1 has disabled the ability to link to an application from both Mail.app and Safari.app, the question is why? Some sort of security vulnerabilities? – possibly. Touching a Phobos link from Safari or Mail on your iPhone or iPod touch now results in an error message to the effect of:

“Safari could not open the address as the address is invalid.”

Interestingly, Apple has only disabled this ability on the iPhone. Phobos links from your Mac or PC still link to content on iTunes.

Now, I look at this move by Apple as a giant step backwards. Before 2.1, we had an easy, widely recognised way to access applications on the mobile App Store, from anywhere on the web, with Phobos. Now this functionality is gone, it’s down to searching the hundreds of thousands of applications currently on the store, manually. Hardly inviting eh? …

This thread over at Mac Rumors as well as this Apple discussion thread also demonstrates how recognised and wide-spread the issue is.

The real question is why did Apple feel the need to pull this functionality? Was it intentional? or what it another by product of the exceptional bug fixing 2.1 brought? – Who knows, all I know is I liked the functionality and now, it’s gone. Cheers Apple!