Phone apps

You asked your AI for an app, and it built one for a phone rather than a browser. Here is exactly what happens, and an honest account of the store question.

The short version

• The server your app talks to: hosted, with a database, storage and scheduled jobs. One command, same as everything else.
• The app itself: deployed like everything else. Every deploy makes the version that runs on phones. For now, it opens on your phone in Expo Go, Expo's free app: see Opening it on your phone. Its address only shows a page saying it is a phone app.
• The app in the App Store or Google Play: you put it there yourself, with your own developer account. Uarpie does not upload apps to the stores. See below for what that really involves.

Opening it on your phone

Until the Uarpie app is out, your phone app opens in Expo Go, a free app made by Expo. It runs your real app, the same screens and the same code, not a web page.

1. Get Expo Go on your phone: App Store or Google Play.
2. On your app's page in the dashboard, choose Open it on your phone.
3. Scan the code with your phone's camera, then tap Open in Expo Go.

That code opens the app as you for seven days, so keep it to yourself. Every deploy updates what opens.

Sharing it. The same place shows the app's link, like uarpie.app/open/HK7QM2. Send it to anyone you want to try the app. If the app is private, the link asks for their email and sends them a six-digit code, and only people you invited can open it. Then it hands the app to Expo Go.

What Expo Go can't do. Expo Go opens only apps made with the version of Expo it runs, and only Expo's built-in features work in it: an app with native code of its own won't open. If your app doesn't match, the dashboard says so and what to ask your AI. When Expo moves Expo Go to a new version, apps made with the old one stop opening there until they are moved to the new one and deployed again.

It stands in for the Uarpie app. Expo Go is not part of Uarpie, and Expo decides what it opens. The Uarpie app will take its place.

Deploying the server

If your project is an Expo or React Native app with a backend folder, deploy the backend:

npx uarpie -C ./server

The command recognises a server with no web pages as an API. Instead of a link to open, it gives you a base URL and a key:

detected  Express · API · Postgres
live      https://quiet-harbor-4471.uarpieapps.com
key       uarpie_k_prj_… (shown once — put it in your app)

Point your phone app at that URL. See APIs and backends for how the key works.

If your app has no backend at all and needs one, ask your AI: "create an Express server with the API routes this app calls, then deploy it." The deploy tells it the same thing if it finds nothing to host.

Getting the app file to upload yourself

On a paid plan, ask your AI: "build the Android app". The platform builds and signs it and hands you two files: the app itself (an .apk), which installs on an Android phone when you open it there, and the file Google Play asks for (an .aab), with a step-by-step guide for putting it on Google Play yourself — Putting your app on Google Play. Uploading is a form, not a technical job, and it needs nothing from you except a Google Play developer account, which only you can create. An Android build has no price of its own: it uses about 40 of your plan's build minutes (past those, Uarpie credit pays for the minutes, if you have some), and an account can make up to 10 a month.

iPhone builds are not available: the platform cannot make the iPhone file, and your AI will say so. Putting your app on the App Store explains what that route involves so you can plan for it.

The App Store and Google Play

Uarpie does not upload apps to the stores. You put your app there yourself: Putting your app on Google Play walks through every step with the file the platform makes, and Putting your app on the App Store explains that route.

What that takes from you, once:

1. Enrolling. Apple charges $99 a year, in your own name, with agreements only you can accept and identity verification. Google charges $25 once, with identity verification, and new personal accounts must run a closed test with a group of testers over a period of days before publishing publicly. Nobody can do this on your behalf.
2. The first listing: name, description, screenshots, a privacy policy, an age rating.

After that, each update is a new build of the app, uploaded by you the same way.

There is also a review by a person at Apple or Google on each submission, usually a day or so. That is unavoidable for anyone.

What it costs

Android builds run on a larger build machine and take about a quarter of an hour. One has no price of its own: it uses your plan's build minutes instead, each of its minutes counting as three because the machine costs us three times as much, so one build uses about 40. Past your plan's build minutes, they come out of Uarpie credit if you have some; without it, builds wait for the next month. An account can make up to 10 a month.

If you want a store listing, that is a real project and you should plan for it.

Updating an app that is already installed

Once a phone app built with Expo is installed, its JavaScript can be updated over the air without going back through review. The platform can host those updates, so deploy would update the phone app the same way it updates a website, with the same version history and the same way back to an earlier version (about half a minute). This is planned and requires an installed build to exist first.