App Distribution — Android & iOS

Overview

Milestone 6 also delivers the distribution channels of the wallet app: a reviewer or tester must be able to install the app and exercise the flows of the local demo without building it from source.

Two repositories, two kinds of artifacts

• the stack (the docker-compose.yml, the IPFS init script) is released in Interstellar-Network/containers;
• the app artifacts (the Android APK, the iOS .app) and the SDK package (the Swift package zip) are released in Interstellar-Network/wallet-app-internal, under the m6-v1 tag.

The same build on every channel — and it needs the local stack

The APK you get from the GitHub release, from Firebase App Distribution or the .ipa you get from TestFlight (or from the direct download) are the very same builds: they are configured for the local dev stack (wss://127.0.0.1:2090, ws://127.0.0.1:9944, IPFS 127.0.0.1:5001), not for a hosted testnet.

So the local stack must be running before you can use any of them (see the local demo), and on Android the three ports must be exposed to the device/emulator (adb reverse tcp:2090 tcp:2090, …). An iOS Simulator reaches 127.0.0.1 natively.

Platform	Channel	Target	Status
Android	GitHub release (m6-v1)	Emulator (x86_64) & devices (arm64)	the tag exists, the assets attached
Android	Firebase App Distribution	Device only (Firebase does not deliver to simulators)	the group exists, the builds are available
iOS	Direct .ipa download	Simulator (TestFlight does not deliver to simulators)	the tag exists, the assets are added at the release
iOS	TestFlight (App Store Connect)	Device only	WIP account approved but setup pending

Android — Firebase App Distribution

The Android app is distributed through Firebase App Distribution, the official channel for handing a build to a group of testers without going through the Play Store.

Get access to the testing group

The tester group is a Firebase tester group: ask Interstellar to add you, or request access through the tester-group link:

appdistribution.firebase.dev/i/71f8c7de02bcbcdc

Once you are in the group, the app is installed straight from the browser (the Firebase tester page) or from the Firebase tester app on the device — no adb, no sideloading.

The official documentation is the reference for the whole flow: distribute-gradle.

The other Android channel

The same build is also published directly as an APK there m6-v1 release — see the local demo.

This is mostly useful if you want to test using an Emulator and want to avoid the whole Google signin there.

iOS — a direct .app (simulator) and TestFlight (real devices)

iOS does not use Firebase: the app is built with xcodebuild archive, exported and uploaded to App Store Connect, where the build shows up in TestFlight.

Why two channels?

TestFlight only delivers to real devices — Apple does not distribute simulator builds through it. So the M6 release offers both:

• a direct .app download for the iOS Simulator (the build compiles the Rust libraries for the simulator slice, so the app runs locally — exactly like the Android APK in the emulator);
• TestFlight for the real devices (signed and distributed by Apple).

For the testers

What you want	Channel	What you do
Run the app in the Simulator	direct .app download	download the zipped .app from the m6-v1 release eg "iosApp-Simulator.app.zip", unzip it, then in Xcode Device > Install Simulated Package… (or xcrun simctl install booted <app>.app)
Run the app on a real device	TestFlight	PENDING/WIP install the TestFlight app, accept the invitation, then install the build

Official documentation: upload builds · distributing for beta testing.

See also

• Local Demo with Docker — run the stack and drive the app.
• Interstellar SDK — Integration Delivered in Milestone 6 — the SDK itself.
• iOS Port — the iOS app and the iOS SDK.