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How to put CarrierNote on your phone, and why it isn't in the App Store

7 October 2026 · CarrierNote

You put CarrierNote on your phone from your phone's browser, with a button called Add to Home Screen. There's nothing to download from an app store and no store account to set up. It isn't in the App Store because it doesn't need to be. It's CarrierNote itself, saved to your phone with its own icon, and it takes a few taps on a recent iPhone or Android phone.

The mobile app is free on every plan, including Pilot. Free means the app, not the service, so Pilot (our free plan) still covers 10 waste movements a calendar month whether you record them on a phone or a computer. Below is what you're installing, how it copes with no signal, and the taps for each phone.

What Add to Home Screen means

Add to Home Screen is a button in your phone's browser menu that puts a website on your home screen as its own icon. Safari on an iPhone has it, and Chrome on Android has its own version of it. On the Android phone we checked, Chrome called it "Install and create shortcut".

Some sites are built to behave like an app once they're added. Apple's own guide calls this turning a website into an app. Tap the icon and the site opens like any other app, full screen, without Safari's address bar around it. Google describes the same idea for Chrome as a web app, which you reach from the home screen like anything else you've installed.

CarrierNote is one of those sites. The mobile app is the same CarrierNote the office signs in to on a computer. You sign in with the same account and see the same notes, so there's nothing to keep in step between the two.

Why it isn't in the App Store

You won't find it in the App Store, and that's the point. A store app reaches your phone through Apple or Google, and so does every new version of it. Ours comes straight from us, so there's no store in the middle and nothing for anyone on the team to remember.

It updates itself. When a new version is ready, a line at the top of the app says so. You save whatever you're part-way through and tap Reload, and that's the update done. We built it that way on purpose, so a new version never swaps itself in while someone is halfway through a note with a customer standing next to them.

What happens when there's no signal

It works with no signal, and syncs when you're back. Plenty of collections happen in basements and country lanes where a phone drops to nothing, so we built for that from the start.

The app keeps a copy of itself on the phone. Mozilla's developer guide describes how a web app stores what it needs on the device so it still opens without a connection, and that's what CarrierNote does. A new waste transfer note made with no signal is saved on the phone, along with its photos. Until it reaches us it carries a temporary number starting WTN-TEMP-, which you can write on the customer's copy. The note sends itself the next time you open the app with signal, gets its proper number, and the app tells you which temporary number became which.

Two limits are worth knowing. Changing a note that's already been sent needs signal. And a note that's still waiting to send exists only on that phone, so don't sign out or remove the app until the line at the top saying it's waiting to sync has gone.

How to install it on an iPhone

These steps are for Safari, the browser that comes with an iPhone. We checked them on an iPhone 15 running iOS 26 in October 2026. Apple moves its menus around between versions, so on an older iPhone the buttons may sit in slightly different places.

  1. Open CarrierNote in Safari. If the link opened inside another app, such as your email, use that app's option to open it in the browser first.
  2. Open the Share menu. If you can't see the Share button, tap the three dots in the corner of the screen, then Share.
  3. Tap View More, then Add to Home Screen. View More is at the end of the bottom row of the Share menu.
  4. Leave the Open as Web App switch on, and tap Add. The CarrierNote icon appears on your home screen.
  5. From now on, open it from the icon rather than from Safari. Sign in there if it asks you to.

How to install it on an Android phone

These steps are for Chrome. Samsung Internet and Firefox can add it too, though the option sits in a different place and may be worded differently.

  1. Open CarrierNote in Chrome. If the link opened inside another app, use that app's option to open it in the browser first.
  2. Tap the three dots, then "Install and create shortcut". The three dots are Chrome's menu, at the top right of the screen.
  3. In the panel that slides up from the bottom, tap "Install".
  4. Tap "Install" again in the "Install app" box. Chrome takes a few seconds to install it.
  5. When the "CarrierNote App installed" message appears at the top of the screen, tap it. The app opens full screen. Sign in there if it asks you to.

If it doesn't work first time

The usual cause is a link that opened inside another app's built-in browser, such as an email app or a messaging app. Those often can't add anything to the home screen. Copy the link into Safari on an iPhone, or Chrome on Android, and try again.

Our help article on fixing mobile app problems covers that and a few other snags, including an icon you can't find and how to remove the app. The step-by-step install guide has the same taps as above, on a page you can send to whoever is setting up the phones.

The taps for both phones are on our mobile app page, with a tab for each. Open it on the phone you want the app on and follow along as you go.

Sources

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