Filed under: iPhone 101
iPhone 101: Special Link Types
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.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kramer said 9:01AM on 7-25-2007
Damn! Why they have to invent another call link? There is already "callto:" link for phone calls.
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Johnny Thrash said 10:14AM on 7-25-2007
And what would be the prefix for the Google Maps link? =)
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Shan said 10:55AM on 7-25-2007
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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Mike D said 11:18AM on 7-25-2007
To make a map link, format the A tag like this:
Cupertino
You can put a full address in there as well:
Our Office
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Mike D said 11:19AM on 7-25-2007
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]
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Donald Burr said 12:32PM on 7-25-2007
Not to pick nits, but mailto: is a standard URL type, it's not just iPhone specific. Try it on your desktop browser sometime.
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nseaver said 7:35AM on 7-27-2007
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.
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Andrew Mellenger said 6:15PM on 7-27-2007
so the href="callto:+11234567890" protocol doesn't work? it works in safari on mac.
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john said 4:27AM on 8-02-2007
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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