Thanks to the Digital Market Act (DMA), Europe has succeeded in forcing Apple and its App Store to bend. iOS 17.4 has indeed brought big changes to the iPhone, including the possibility of taking advantage of alternative application stores.
It was finally on April 17, 2024 that a first solution of this type was deployed: the AltStore PAL. Open-source, the latter can be installed from the developers’ website for a small financial compensation of 1.80 euros per year.
For its launch, the new alternative store to the App Store is not very rich in applications. There are in fact only two services available at the moment:
- Delta, an NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS emulator designed by Riley Testut;
- Clip, a clipboard to remember all the content copied from your iPhone.
Please note, the AltStore PAL has the particularity of integrating Patreon into its monetization system. Thus, developers can limit access to their application to a donation on the platform. For example, Clip requires a monthly pledge on Patreon of at least 1 euro excluding taxes.
In addition to alternative app stores, developers also have another option for offering their apps outside the App Store: Web Distribution. Deployed via beta 2 of iOS 17.5, this option simply allows developers to distribute their services directly from their website.