CarrierPony 3.1.0

A fix release for pairing. Before this, a pairing could quietly fail to finish on one side, and messages from that person were then dropped without any warning.

What was broken

When you share an invite and someone accepts it, their phone adds you right away, but your phone only finishes its side the next time it checks the relay. If your app stayed closed until the invite's 24 hours were up, your phone gave up on it, the relay deleted the record, and the pairing never finished on your side. Their messages then reached your phone, couldn't be verified, and were deleted after a few attempts. Neither side saw an error.

What's fixed

Pairing finishes even if your app was closed. An invite that was accepted while your app was closed now completes the next time you open it, for up to 30 days. The relay keeps accepted invites around for that window.

The other side can finish it directly. Accepting an invite now also sends a small pairing message to the person who made it, so their phone can finish the pairing from its inbox even if the relay record is gone.

Messages are held, not dropped. A message from someone whose pairing hasn't finished on your phone is now kept on the device and opens on its own once the pairing completes. The inbox shows how many are waiting.

You can see when pairing isn't finished. After you accept someone's invite, the conversation says so until their side confirms.

These fixes work best when both phones are on 3.1.0, or on the matching iOS update.

About this build

The attached APK is the FOSS build. It carries the SMS transport and contains no Google or Firebase code, so it is the build for F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, and direct install.

Verify

The APK is signed with the CarrierPony release key. It also ships a detached GPG signature made with the CarrierPony key:

A0CB C8F6 5AAC E56F 1C5B  7677 53F9 798E 4919 DE62

gpg --verify carrierpony-3.1.0.apk.asc carrierpony-3.1.0.apk

CarrierPony 3.0.0

The first release since the public 2.0. This one adds the features that make CarrierPony a full messenger rather than a one-to-one PGP tool, and it stops the relay from learning who talks to whom.

What's new

Group chats. Create a group, add or remove members, and share text, photos, and files. A removed member stops receiving.

Broadcast channels. Admins post, everyone else reads. Share a subscribe link and anyone can join with no prior pairing. Subscribers never see each other.

Sealed sender. The relay no longer learns who is in a conversation or channel. Rosters stay on your devices, not on the server.

Multiple accounts. Run more than one identity on the same device, each with its own inbox.

Direct delivery. Messages can travel straight between devices over your local network, or peer to peer across the internet, and skip the relay whenever a path exists.

Nostr transport (opt-in). Send and receive over Nostr relays as an alternative to the CarrierPony relay.

SMS transport. When there is no internet, fall back to data SMS. This is in the FOSS build only.

About this build

The attached APK is the FOSS build. It carries the SMS transport and contains no Google or Firebase code, so it is the build for F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, and direct install.

Verify

The APK is signed with the CarrierPony release key. It also ships a detached GPG signature made with the CarrierPony key:

A0CB C8F6 5AAC E56F 1C5B  7677 53F9 798E 4919 DE62

gpg --verify carrierpony-3.0.0.apk.asc carrierpony-3.0.0.apk

CarrierPony 2.0.0

New: disappearing messages. Set a per-conversation timer, from 1 hour to 4 weeks or off, and new messages delete themselves when it elapses. The setting syncs across your own devices.

This release also brings the Android client to parity with the latest iOS build: remembered remote invites that finish after you close the invite screen, a Report action on the conversation list, clearer errors when a message cannot be opened, and no relay traffic while the app is locked.

First public source release, under Apache-2.0.