AltStore – An alternative app store for non-jailbroken iOS devices

iOS &amp; iPadOS devices would be so awesome if they could just run arbitrary software. The new iPad Pro is more powerful than my Lenovo T-Series laptop, and I would totally buy one if I could actually run e.g. Linux on it.<p>But unfortunately Apple deliberately cripples these devices. Really hope the EU will overthrow these hardware-facilitated software monopolies soon. The truth is Apple already makes quite sizeable profits with the hardware alone, so I think at least power users should be able to install arbitrary software on them. This whole &quot;the hardware can only run software approved by us&quot; is so ridiculous, really makes you wonder how companies doing this (not only Apple) can still get away with it.<p>Imaging Tesla would restrict which roads you can drive your car on, because just using arbitrary roads that haven&#x27;t been thoroughly reviewed by them for security and safety would be a risk to you. That&#x27;s essentially what Apple is doing with hardware that&#x27;s perfectly capable of running general-purpose software.

From their GitHub readme:<p>&gt; AltStore is an iOS application that allows you to sideload other apps (.ipa files) onto your iOS device with just your Apple ID. AltStore re-signs apps with your personal development certificate and sends them to a desktop app, AltServer, which installs the re-signed apps back to your device using iTunes WiFi sync. To prevent apps from expiring, AltStore will also periodically refresh your apps in the background when on the same WiFi as AltServer.

AltStore is great. It’s honestly a fairly elegant solution, and Riley is constantly working on it and his Delta emulator which is equally impressive.<p>If you have an always-on Mac to handle updates and refreshes, it’s been a near-seamless experience for me for over a year.

Some discussion from several months ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25028786" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25028786</a>

This looks great, but I think the website could be improved with a bit more explanation about what it actually is and who it&#x27;s aimed at. EG. does this need an Apple Developer account? Do you need Xcode on the &quot;Server&quot; machine?<p>I love the simple 3 images &quot;explaining&quot; the process but after that I&#x27;m still left with a lot of questions, which are not immediately addressed by the FAQs which seem to be worded with an assumption that you&#x27;ve already decided to install it.<p>That said, it&#x27;s open source, it looks cool, and it may be useful to me in the future!

I&#x27;ve used this in the past for gameboy emulators. It worked, but there is a constant game of cat and mouse. Apple is aware of this and tries to make it harder to happen, developer convenience be damned.

Seems cool, but why not show the actual apps I can install using this? I’m not going to install it on my Mac just to find out there’s a bunch of stuff I don’t care about.

The problem with an unofficial side load like this is that it can get around some of the built in protections of iOs that I actually like. It opens up attack vectors that Apple hasn&#x27;t considered yet.<p>I feel like with official side loading, Apple would be inclined to lock down what apps can do without explicit permission, or better yet, require more explicit permissions when an app is side loaded. Like make every API call require permission the first time it&#x27;s called.<p>I&#x27;m fine with it being difficult to side load, but I really want it to be official so that Apple at least considers those attack vectors (like they&#x27;ve been doing on MacOS).

What are the apps on these kinds of platforms that make the effort worthwhile?

&gt; A home for apps that push the boundaries of iOS.<p>What apps?! How can you go to all the trouble of creating this service and not show the apps.

&gt; Enter your Apple ID email and password<p>Nope

Wish the server supported ARM Linux so I could run it off an rpi

This is a nice looking and elegant solution to an artificially created problem that shouldn&#x27;t be there in the first place. Why not use an OS that doesn&#x27;t treat it&#x27;s users like crap?

Not sure if I want apps that can use all sorts of private APIs with zero impunity on my device. At least on the actual AppStore they get scanned. I wonder if they can provide such service?

If you aren&#x27;t opposed to jailbreaking, there is Appsync Unified [1], which lets you install .ipa files directly from our device.<p>[1]. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;akemin-dayo&#x2F;AppSync" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;akemin-dayo&#x2F;AppSync</a>

Can this be used to side load iOS apps onto a M1 Mac?

Does anyone else have their work email on their phone? How could you even consider this if you use your phone for internal business?

prior posting on this <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25028786" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25028786</a>

How does it work? I thought it&#x27;s not possible?

very cool.

As for me, I don’t share everyone else’s frustration with Apple’s tight control over its mobile devices because I don’t even think of them as fully-featured computers, as opposed to mere consumption devices, pocket internet browsers, or note-taking devices. I think it’s possible that people’s frustration is misplaced because they’re getting confused about the market positioning of Apple’s mobile devices versus Macs.

HELL NO! Download an app to basically virtualize (allow complete tracking ) an application. iOS and now iPadOS have allowed direct “app”installs for 10 years. Progressive web applications currently could be written for most native applications and deployed on just about any platform.