Seven Weeks of Gryt on a Phone
Where the Gryt phone app is seven weeks in. Encrypted DMs, threads, pins, linking devices, and as of this week, push notifications only your phone can read. Plus what's still missing.
Where it's at
The last phone post went up six days into building the app, with 156 commits and nineteen builds behind it. That was 26 August. It's 8 October now. The repository is at 391 commits, and 179 pull requests have been merged since that post. The iPhone build on TestFlight is number 61, and Android is on build 42 on Google Play's internal track. The version number still says 0.1.1.
What's in it now
Most of what landed in those seven weeks is the phone catching up with the desktop app.
Direct messages run on MLS, the same as on desktop since 1.12.0. The server can't read them, and a key that leaks later can't open old ones. Files and reactions work in them too. A message sent while the server restarts waits, then goes out once instead of twice.
Chat got threads and forum topics, pins, @everyone, @here, role and #channel mentions, a full emoji picker for reactions, and an image viewer.
Long-press a message to react, reply, start a thread, copy it or pin it. Type @ and it suggests names as you go.
Unread counts work, and you can jump to the first unread message. Tapping an old pin or a reply's quote opens the history right where that message is, however far back. From there a Jump to present button floats over the chat, with a count of anything that came in meanwhile. There's also a New line above the first message you haven't seen.
Linking a device is in. You scan a QR code from a device you already use, check that both show the same emoji, and approve it behind Face ID. Your keys and servers come over from the other device.
The rest, in no particular order:
- friends, and requests
- per-person volume and push to talk
- themes and presets, with a colour editor
- member cards with banners, including video ones
- server settings for invites, folders, emoji and roles
- a short tour the first time you join a server
Notifications
Push notifications arrived this week, with server 1.10.58. A Gryt server is somebody's own machine, but
Apple and Google only deliver notifications for an app through whoever holds that
app's keys. So there's a
small relay at push.gryt.chat in the middle. Each server gets its own random
ID for your phone. The relay knows which phone an ID belongs to, and that's all.
A notification still shows who wrote, where, and the first line, as in the middle picture above. When your phone signs up with a server, it makes a key that only it and that server have. The server locks the preview with that key. The relay, Apple and Google pass it along, and none of them can open it. A small extension in the app unlocks it on your phone just before the banner shows. If it can't, you get "New message" instead.
Pushes follow the same notification settings as the desktop app. A channel set to Everything wakes the phone for every message. One set to Only mentions wakes it for mentions, and for @everyone unless you've muted that for the server. Encrypted DMs say who and where, but the text stays "New direct message", because the server can't read those either. Since desktop 1.13.20, an open desktop app also stops holding back your phone's notifications. They start once the Gryt window has been in the background for a minute, or you haven't touched it for five.
Getting this working turned up a bug that had been in every TestFlight build since early September. The build server signed the app in a way that quietly dropped its entitlements, the permissions Apple checks, so the app wasn't allowed to receive pushes at all. That's fixed now, and the build checks for it before uploading. The same missing entitlement is probably why sharing to Gryt from other apps, and screen sharing, misbehaved in TestFlight builds. I still need to check both on a real phone.
What's missing
There's no App Store or Play Store listing yet, and there won't be until the app is finished. Google also wants a closed test with at least twelve testers for fourteen days in a row before it allows a public release, and the App Store needs its listing and a review.
Search isn't built. The tab is there and says so, same as in August.
On Android, notifications don't show the preview yet. They say "New message" or "Someone mentioned you". The preview is already in the push. The app just needs to open it.
Some of it needs a real phone. The audio output picker was reported stuck on the loudspeaker in September, and that's still open. The share sheet and screen share need checking on the new build. None of this shows up on a simulator, so the bug report button in settings is the best way to tell me. Reports land in my tracker with the build number attached.
Becoming a tester
Until then, the app is on TestFlight for iPhone and in a test on Google Play for Android. Anyone can join:
- Ask on our Gryt server or through feedback.gryt.chat. Say which phone you have, and send the email for your Apple ID or Google account.
- I add you to the test. On iPhone, Apple sends you a TestFlight invite. Install the TestFlight app from the App Store and open the invite from there. On Android, you get a link that signs you up on Google Play, and Gryt installs from the Play Store like any other app.
- Sign in with your Gryt account, or start fresh, and join a server.
- When something breaks, use Report a bug in the app. It sends the build number along, so I know which version you're on.
Android testers help the most right now. The store needs those twelve people testing for two weeks before the app can go public.