Beta testing

We’re currently running an invite-only beta testing programme to gather feedback on the initial version of Letro. If you’ve been invited and are interested in participating, please read this document as it contains important information (also, thank you very much for participating!).

Timeline

This is the tentative timeline for the beta testing programme – all dates are subject to change:

  1. Private beta: November to December 2023. We’ll invite a small group of people to test Letro and provide feedback. We’re likely to release breaking changes that would reset the data stored on your device by an older version of Letro, but we’ll try our best to minimise this.
  2. Public beta: January to mid 2024. We’ll make the app available in countries that aren’t subject to severe censorship; we’ll start with 2-3 countries, and gradually expand from there. We won’t release breaking changes intentionally.
  3. General availability: mid 2024. Once Awala, Letro and VeraId have been independently audited, and we’ve addressed any major issues, we’ll make the app available worldwide.

Note that the security audits depend on third parties, so we can’t commit to a specific date for the general availability.

Install Letro

To test Letro, you should:

  1. Accept the invite to the Letro beta testers Google Group. This is a low-traffic, announcement-only mailing list that controls access to the beta testing programme on the Play Store. You can leave the group at any time and only admins can see the members.
  2. Join the beta testing programme.
  3. Install Letro from the Play Store.

Important considerations

We need to be upfront about the risks of using it at this point:

  • Things will most certainly break. We’re confident that Letro is stable enough for daily use, but we’re sure you’ll uncover issues that the team hadn’t come across yet.
  • You may lose your data at any time, due to either a bug or a breaking change in a newer version of the app. If you share anything important, make a copy outside Letro.
  • We’ve requested an independent security audit from a reputable team. We’ve taken every reasonable measure to ensure that Letro is secure, but you shouldn’t take our word for it until the report is published. So, please don’t use Letro for anything sensitive yet.

Also, please make sure to read our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Important limitations

Except for some minimal, non-sensitive metadata stored on our server, all your data is stored on your own devices. This means that:

  • Free account ids under Relaycorp-managed domain names (e.g., applepie.rocks, cuppa.fans) can’t be migrated to other devices or restored if you uninstall Letro. This limitation doesn’t apply to any domain names under your control.
  • You shouldn’t use the same Letro account id across multiple devices. If you do this, each device would have a different set of contacts – and you can’t communicate with a contact you have on another phone, even if your id is the same.
  • Conversations and contacts can’t be migrated to other phones or restored if you reinstall Letro.

We have plans to address these limitations in a privacy-respecting manner.

Known issues

Incoming data delays

Due to a bug in Awala, incoming data may experience severe delays even when you’re connected to the Internet. For example, you may try to create a free account and nothing happens for more than 10 seconds.

To check if this is the issue you’re experiencing, open the Awala app. If you see a message saying “You’re not connected to Awala”, then you’re affected by this bug.

To work around this issue, you can either:

  • Switch to another network on Android (for example, from WiFi to 5G). You can revert this immediately.
  • Force-stop Awala, then open Letro.

Reinstalling Awala requires reinstalling Letro

If you reinstall Awala or clear its data, you should also reinstall Letro or clear its data. This is a limitation in Awala itself.

Opting out

To leave the testing programme:

  1. Leave the testing track on the Play Store.
  2. Leave the Letro beta testers Google Group.
  3. Uninstall Letro and Awala.

Help and feedback

To report issues, get help or provide feedback, please contact Gus directly – preferably via Letro, but email also works!