Videos
I have nearly finished making an app for tracking my nutrition – basically a better version of MyFitnessPal custom made to my own needs. I never intend on distributing it. I want a local build, with its own dedicated app icon on my home screen, not the tedium of opening Expo Go and tapping through to my build.
Is there a way to accomplish this without having to go through App Review? I'm afraid it will fail review because it's a blatant copycat, even though I only made it for personal use.
With the current Expo SDK 50, using npx expo prebuild is the right starting point. After you did this, you need to build your project without relying on the metro server. This means, you have to build a standalone .ipa file for ios. You can do all of the following in Xcode by opening your ios/*.xcworkspace file.
- Change the Build Configuration: In Xcode -> Product -> Scheme -> Edit Scheme -> choose "Debug" -> Close
- Build the app: Product -> Build
- Archive your app: if there are no building errors -> Product -> Archive
- Export archived app: Window -> Organiser (this should open up automatically after step 3) -> select the archived build -> Distribute App -> Debug -> Perform signing procedure -> Select destination for .ipa file
- Install app on connected device: Connect device to your Mac -> Window -> Devices and Simulators -> Under "Installed Apps", click on "+" -> Select .ipa file
If you want to run your Expo app on your physical device without using the Expo Go app and an Expo server, you would need to create a standalone app binary (an IPA file for iOS).
This process involves "ejecting" from the managed Expo workflow to gain more control over the build process. Here's the general process:
Run expo eject in your project directory. This will create native iOS and Android project directories and configuration files.
For iOS, you'll now have an ios folder in your project directory. You can open this in Xcode by navigating to the directory and opening the .xcworkspace file.
From Xcode, you can run your app on a connected device by selecting the device from the target device list and clicking the "play" button.
Please note: In order to install the app on a physical device, you'll still need an Apple Developer account, even if it's just the free version. You'll have to sign your app with a development certificate. The app will also only run as long as the development certificate is valid, which is typically 7 days for a free Apple Developer account. After this period, you'll need to re-sign and re-install the app.
If you're looking for a way to run your app on your physical device indefinitely without an Apple Developer account, unfortunately, this is not possible due to Apple's policies.
If you use expo, then we build the iOS app for you on our machines. You can test the app on your local Android device.
You need a macOS machine to build your application. On Expo, they have macOS machines that build your app. But now you can also build non-expo applications, by remotely accessing a macOS build machine as part of Codemagic's product. Currently, you can get 500 build minutes for free per month.