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> Testut told The Verge that measures to block AltStore would break key functionality for developers or iTunes syncing. No, it won't. Keep in mind that we didn't have the 7 day side-load for free apple ids prior to 2015[1]. All apple has to do is disable sideloading for free accounts. I imagine it won't impact many legitimate developers, who probably have paid developer accounts anyways. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2015/…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think if moderation of the apps you can install on iOS was going to become a legal issue, we would have already been there. The reality is, if Apple wrongs you, you can walk into Best Buy or whatever and buy and Android phone. The smartphone ecosystem is very healthy, there are plenty of opportunities for everyone to get exactly what they want.
If you buy an Android you can no longer commuicate with all your friends using iMessages. SO no, not quite "plenty of opportunities for everyone to get exactly what they want."
Well, there's an underestimation of Apple if ever I saw it.
> Testut told The Verge that measures to block AltStore would break key functionality for developers or iTunes syncing. No, it won't. Keep in mind that we didn't have the 7 day side-load for free apple ids prior to 2015[1]. All apple has to do is disable sideloading for free accounts. I imagine it won't impact many legitimate developers, who probably have paid developer accounts anyways. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2015/…
Might there be an antitrust angle here?
Isn’t apple just gonna blacklist this somehow? I get that you’re signing the app, but it’s definitely against the TOS in some obscure way. It’s not as though they won’t know which Apple IDs are logged in to the phones this gets installed on, regardless of signing certs. Edit: I do really like this though, it is a clever way out of the walled garden! I’ve used TestFlight to load stuff like ish on my phone, and would c…
If Apple is tracking IDs how is that not anti-privacy? In fact arguably they should implement signed reciepts so they don't have to track which apps you own. As it is they know all the apps you own, and probably even when and how often you run them. Instead they could send you a cryptographically signed receipt and then not actually keep track of which apps you own. When you want an update they verify the receipt. Th…
How?
Free Apple ID's have a three app limit. How is this store working around that?
“While there’s nothing I could do about this from the iOS device itself, as it turns out the same underlying iTunes (WiFi) sync infrastructure I’m using allows you to also install and remove provisioning profiles from devices (since Xcode also requires this ability to manage profiles for developers). Before installing an app, I remove all the existing profiles on the device to make it look to the system like there are no other apps installed, and then once the app is installed I reinstall all the profiles. It’s very simple, but it works.”
http://rileytestut.com/blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/
> Testut told The Verge that measures to block AltStore would break key functionality for developers or iTunes syncing. No, it won't. Keep in mind that we didn't have the 7 day side-load for free apple ids prior to 2015[1]. All apple has to do is disable sideloading for free accounts. I imagine it won't impact many legitimate developers, who probably have paid developer accounts anyways. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2015/…
> For this distribution method, AltStore requires your Apple ID and password to communicate on your behalf with Apple’s developer servers.
This seems really sketchy, and I would not be surprised if Apple took steps to prevent this, and possibly even to disable Apple IDs associated with this activity.
> The last major restriction is that an iOS device may only ever have at most 3 apps installed using this method, even if they come from different Apple IDs. This was by far the most frustrating one to deal with, but thankfully I was able to find a workaround in time.
The workaround (swapping around provisioning profiles) sounds like it's abusing a bug which Apple could fix pretty easily.
[1]: http://rileytestut.com/blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/
iTunes WiFi sync is going to be deprecated, because iTunes is being deprecated.
Their best chance of survival, IMO, is building a developer collaboration platform that Apple finds worthy of purchase and maybe will integrate into XCode - something along the lines of Github but exclusive to the Apple platform with lots of integrations they can rely on for workflows and such. I think I’ve read that Apple isn’t big on services, but if this were developed in a peer-to-peer sort of way, piggybacking on iCloud as much as possible, maybe they’d want it.