IOS - Can't open Whatsapp chat programatically, but can do it through HTML

Question

I have a Web page with an anchor that has href=\"whatsapp:+(xxxxxxxxx)\", if i click on it on my iPhone (iOS 9), it opens WhatsApp in the chat view for that contact (i can s

Answer 1

working fine with xcode 8.3.2 and swift 3

    let date = Date()
    let msg = "Hi my dear friends\(date)"
    let urlWhats = "whatsapp://send?phone=phoneNumber&abid=phoneNumber&text=hi"
    if let urlString = urlWhats.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: NSCharacterSet.urlQueryAllowed) {
        if let whatsappURL = NSURL(string: urlString) {
            if UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(whatsappURL as URL) {
                UIApplication.shared.openURL(whatsappURL as URL)
            } else {
                print("please install watsapp")
            }
        }
    }