How does deployment to App store work?

Expo SDK
1

Hi!

As I understand it, it is possible to deploy an application developed with Expo to the App store. According to Project Lifecyckle it is possible to do this with exp build or by detaching the application to Expokit. Does both these methods mean that the application has to be opened via the Expo app? And how does that work when a user downloads the app from the App store??

And also, since from what I understand, the only way to not have to have user use your app throught the Expo app is to build standalone apps, it kind of seems, from the docs that I in that case have to choose between building an iOS app or an Android app, I thought the point with Expo was to avoid having to choose???

I hope my questions are not too messy to understand, any help clearing up these questions for me is very appreciated!

2

Hi-

If you use exp build or build an app with ExpoKit, you can get an IPA and an APK that you can put in the iOS App Store and Google Play Store respectively. These apps can be downloaded through the app stores the way that users are used to and there won’t be any mention of Expo to your users.

When you build a standalone app, you run one command to build the IPA for iOS and one command to build the APK for Android. But once you’ve built those, your JS stays the same, and when you update it, it updates across both platforms.

Does this all make sense now?

3

Oh okej, yes it does make sense now!

Thank you for clearing it all up !