Edited on 2016-02-02
Starting from iOS 6 SKStoreProductViewController class was introduced. You can link an app without leaving your app. Code snippet in Swift 3.x/2.x and Objective-C is here.
A SKStoreProductViewController object presents a store that allows the
user to purchase other media from the App Store. For example, your app
might display the store to allow the user to purchase another app.
From News and Announcement For Apple Developers.
Drive Customers Directly to Your App
on the App Store with iTunes Links
With iTunes links you can provide your
customers with an easy way to access
your apps on the App Store directly
from your website or marketing
campaigns. Creating an iTunes link is
simple and can be made to direct
customers to either a single app, all
your apps, or to a specific app with
your company name specified.
To send customers to a specific
application:
http://itunes.com/apps/appname
To send
customers to a list of apps you have
on the App Store:
http://itunes.com/apps/developername
To send customers to a specific app
with your company name included in the
URL:
http://itunes.com/apps/developername/appname
Additional notes:
You can replace http:// with itms:// or itms-apps:// to avoid redirects.
Please note that itms:// will send the user to the iTunes store and itms-apps:// with send them to the App Store!
For info on naming, see Apple QA1633:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1633/_index.html.
Edit (as of January 2015):
itunes.com/apps links should be updated to appstore.com/apps. See QA1633 above, which has been updated. A new QA1629 suggests these steps and code for launching the store from an app:
- Launch iTunes on your computer.
- Search for the item you want to link to.
- Right-click or control-click on the item's name in iTunes, then choose "Copy iTunes Store URL" from the pop-up menu.
- In your application, create an
NSURL object with the copied iTunes URL, then pass this object to UIApplication' s openURL: method to open your item in the App Store.
Sample code:
NSString *iTunesLink = @"itms://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8";
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:iTunesLink]];
iOS10+:
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:iTunesLink] options:@{} completionHandler:nil];
Swift 4.2
let urlStr = "itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8"
if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
UIApplication.shared.open(URL(string: urlStr)!, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
} else {
UIApplication.shared.openURL(URL(string: urlStr)!)
}
I found how to automate the build and archive process from the comand line, I just wrote a blog article explaining how you can achieve that.
The command you have to use is xcrun:
/usr/bin/xcrun -sdk iphoneos PackageApplication \
-v "${RELEASE_BUILDDIR}/${APPLICATION_NAME}.app" \
-o "${BUILD_HISTORY_DIR}/${APPLICATION_NAME}.ipa" \
--sign "${DEVELOPER_NAME}" \
--embed "${PROVISONING_PROFILE}"
You will find all the details in the article. If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask.
Best Answer
Discovered the answer, the key was to go on iTunes Connect > My Apps > TestFlight > Any Group > Builds, and then submitted it via adding a new build in there.