Recipe: Creating URL-Based Services
Apple’s built-in applications offer a variety of services that can be accessed via URL calls. You can ask Safari to open web pages, open Maps to show a map, or use the mailto:-style URL to start composing a letter in Mail. A URL scheme refers to the first part of the URL that appears before the colon, such as http or ftp.
These services work because iOS knows how to match URL schemes to applications. A URL that starts with http: opens in Mobile Safari. The mailto: URL always links to Mail. What you may not know is that you can define your own URL schemes and implement them in your applications. Not all standard schemes are supported on iOS. For example, the FTP scheme is not available for use.
Custom schemes ...
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