Install the app

There is no app store listing. Your organizer or operator hands you a signed installer file for Android, and you install it directly. iPhones are not supported for pilots today.

What you need

• An Android phone from roughly 2017 or later (64-bit).
• The file app-release.apk, from whoever runs your community.
• To be on the same Wi-Fi as the community’s station when you join. After that, you only need to reach it now and then to sync.

Install

1. Get the file onto your phone. Email, a USB cable, or a download link all work.
2. Allow the install. Open the file. Android will ask whether to allow “install unknown apps” for whichever app you opened it from (Files, Chrome, and so on). Allow it, then tap Install.
3. Open the app. It walks you through creating your wallet: choose a passphrase, optionally turn on fingerprint or face unlock, and the app generates your address, a long string that starts with rrn1.

Your key is created on the phone and never leaves it. Nobody, including the station, can act as you.

Updating

When you are handed a newer app-release.apk, install it over the top. Your wallet and history are preserved.

Do not uninstall first. Uninstalling erases the wallet on the phone. You can get your identity back from a wallet export or your recovery circle, but only if you set one of those up beforehand.

If the app stops syncing in the background

Some phones, Motorola in particular, cut off a backgrounded app’s network access until you exempt it from battery optimization. If notifications or background sync stop working:

Settings → Apps → Railroad Network → Battery → allow Unrestricted.

The wording varies by phone. Your operator has a per-vendor checklist if that does not fix it.

Using a computer instead

A member with a laptop and no Android phone can hold their own key with the command-line wallet instead. It is the same identity model, driven from a terminal, and unlike the app today it can sign while the station is out of reach. See Using a computer instead of a phone.