The iPhone offers three special kinds of links that receive special treatment. Each of these links can appear in Safari or in your mail. When clicked, they tell the iPhone to launch a specific application to handle them.
The first, the mailto: link, you're probably already familiar with. It's just like the Web-based mailto: link that's been in use for the last decade. When clicked, it opens your iPhone's email application, creates a new message and addresses it to the target of the link, e.g. mailto:sjobs@apple.com.
The second link is tel:. As you might guess, it opens the iPhone's calling application and calls the number used as the link's target. This allows Web developers to add "call us" links in their web page that, when tapped, actually place a call.
The third kind involves Google Maps. Instead of opening Google Maps links in Safari, they automatically open in the iPhone Maps widget instead. It doesn't matter whether you click them in Safari or Mail. The iPhone recognizes the link and launches the Maps widget for viewing.
Thanks iDan.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-25-2007 @ 9:01AM
Kramer said...
Damn! Why they have to invent another call link? There is already "callto:" link for phone calls.
Reply
7-25-2007 @ 10:14AM
Johnny Thrash said...
And what would be the prefix for the Google Maps link? =)
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7-25-2007 @ 10:55AM
Shan said...
You forgot the 4th type of link... YouTube. It works like Google Maps... go to a YouTube page, get redirected to the YouTube app.
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7-25-2007 @ 11:18AM
Mike D said...
To make a map link, format the A tag like this:
Cupertino
You can put a full address in there as well:
Our Office
Reply
7-25-2007 @ 11:19AM
Mike D said...
ok, that didn't work so good... LOL
To make a map link, format the A tag like this:
[a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=cupertino"]Cupertino[/a]
You can put a full address in there as well:
[a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=123 Main St. Anytown, CA 12345"]Our Office[/a]
Reply
7-25-2007 @ 12:32PM
Donald Burr said...
Not to pick nits, but mailto: is a standard URL type, it's not just iPhone specific. Try it on your desktop browser sometime.
Reply
7-27-2007 @ 7:35AM
nseaver said...
Don't forget: youtube links do the same thing as google maps links; they just rarely work out to be one of the few videos optimized for the iPhone so far.
Reply
7-27-2007 @ 6:15PM
Andrew Mellenger said...
so the href="callto:+11234567890" protocol doesn't work? it works in safari on mac.
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8-02-2007 @ 4:27AM
john said...
wow! mobile phones are becoming so much of a necessity that it is hard to imagine a life without them and also hard to even comprehend how the previous generation survived so many years!!!
:) LoL
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