Building to the Phone
Building the AR app to the phone
Building a mobile app with Unreal Engine involves setting up your project to support either Android or iOS, configuring mobile-friendly rendering, and deploying the app to your device for testing or distribution. The steps include enabling the mobile platforms, setting up device-specific SDKs, configuring project settings, and using Unreal’s Android Launch Screens or packaging the project to build and deploy.
The process differs between iOS and Android mainly because of platform-specific requirements. Android uses open tools like Android Studio, and deployment can be done directly from Windows. iOS, however, requires a Mac and Apple’s Xcode for code signing and provisioning with an Apple Developer Account. iOS also often requires remote building from a Mac if you’re using Windows.
When you're making an AR app, these setup steps are important because AR features depend on device-specific AR frameworks: ARCore for Android and ARKit for iOS. Unreal Engine supports both through its AR plugin system, but you still need the platform-specific tools to compile and run those features on a physical device. AR apps also need camera access, good performance, and proper handling of device sensors, which makes correct setup and testing on real hardware essential.
Creating a Mobile Project
Read more about configuring a project for mobile in Unreal Engine.
10. Building to the Phone
iOS and Mac
Building to iOS with XCode
Read more about configuring a UE5 project for iOS. While Epic's software is available free of charge, Apple Developer accounts cost a fee of $99 per year. Keep this in mind when registering your account.
Andorid and Windows
Building to Android
Read more configuring a UE5 project for Android.