iPhone App: how to get app icon from app id?

Question

I am looking for a way to get the app icon from the app id. Do you know how to do it? Please share the way. Thanks.

eg Instagram, where the id I'm looking for is: id389801252

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/instagram/id389801252?mt=8

I want to get this image:

Answer 1

(I composed this answer after 2 minutes of googling... It's just the matter of the correct keyword!)

This is possible using an undocumented documented API of the iTunes Store. It might change in the future, but it doesn't seem to have changed in the near past, so here you are...

NSString *idString = @"id389801252";

NSString *numericIDStr = [idString substringFromIndex:2]; // @"389801252"
NSString *urlStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=%@", numericIDStr];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlStr];
NSData *json = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];

NSDictionary *dict = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:json options:0 error:NULL];
NSArray *results = [dict objectForKey:@"results"];
NSDictionary *result = [results objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *imageUrlStr = [result objectForKey:@"artworkUrl100"]; // or 512, or 60

NSURL *artworkURL = [NSURL URLWithString:imageUrlStr];
NSData *imageData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:artworkURL];
UIImage *artworkImage = [UIImage imageWithData:imageData];

Note that this performs two synchronous round-trips using the NSURL API, so you better wrap this in a backgorund thread for maximal user experience. Feed this program an ID string ( idString in the code above) and in the end, artworkImage will contain a UIImage with the desired image.

Answer 2

Just for reference, you can use the app's bundle id too:

http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?bundleId=com.burbn.instagram

Answer 3

Not sure if this is at all relevant anymore, but Apple provides an iTunes Link Maker tool. If you use this tool to find your app, you'll also see where it shows an App Icon section. Click embed and grab the img link from there. One thing to note, I did end up playing with the url a bit to find the right size and format I needed (for instance you can get a jpg render instead of png or select an arbitrary size like 128x128)