EAS Update vs Classic OTA: Choosing the Right Over‑The‑Air Strategy

Insight

Expo introduced EAS Update to give developers fine‑grained control over over‑the‑air (OTA) releases. Unlike the classic expo-updates flow, EAS Update lets you publish multiple channels, roll back instantly, and target specific builds with runtime version constraints. This means you can ship a hotfix to only iOS users on version 1.2.0 while keeping Android on the stable channel. The trade‑off is a slightly more complex CI setup and the need to manage channel names.

Example

import * as Updates from 'expo-updates';

// Switch to the "beta" channel on demand
async function switchToBeta() {
  await Updates.setChannelAsync('beta');
  const update = await Updates.checkForUpdateAsync();
  if (update.isAvailable) {
    await Updates.fetchUpdateAsync();
    await Updates.reloadAsync();
  }
}

Takeaway

Use EAS Update when you need per‑platform or per‑release channel OTA control; stick with the classic OTA for simple apps that only require a single, always‑up‑to‑date bundle.