• Thanks to Apple’s compliance with the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), AltStore PAL, the third-party IOS app, is now live in Europe with an annual subscription fee of $1.6 (plus tax).
  • AltStore PAL releases two apps: a free Nintendo emulator called Delta and a clipboard manager called Clip.
  • Installing AltStore PAL on an IOS system still requires some tricky steps.

The third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL is now live in the European Union with the launching of a free Nintendo emulator called Delta and a clipboard manager called Clip.

About AltStore PAL

To install the app marketplace, AltStore PAL charges an annual subscription fee of $1.6 (plus tax) to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF).

Installing AltStore PAL needs to persistently click through numerous awkwardly designed scare sheets from Apple that confirm and reaffirm your decision to install apps from sources outside Apple’s App Store.

AltSore is the work of Riley Testut, a game developer and his business partner Shane Gill.

To monetize its marketplace, AltStore PAL is integrating with an online platform Patreon. Additionally, it will provide support to developers who wish to distribute beta apps as thanks for crowd-sourced funding—something that is prohibited in the App Store.

AltStore is not brand new. It has been available for iOS since 2019, but up until now, installing it required a workaround that essentially used a companion piece of software called AltServer running on a Mac or PC to trick the iPhone into thinking you are the app developer. Even though it doesn’t technically require jailbreaking your phone, it’s a little tricky.

Testut says that third-party developers are welcome to submit content to AltStore PAL. The idea is for AltStore PAL apps to be self-hosted by developers on their servers, in contrast to Apple’s centralized App Store. Users will need to add extra “sources” to the app marketplace to download software created by other developers.

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About Delta and Clip

Two apps created by Riley Testut are making their way into the new app marketplace: Clip, an Apple-forbidden clipboard manager, and Delta, an emulator that can play games for the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. Testut and his business partner Shane Gill are in charge of the store.

While downloading Clip necessitates a minimum monthly Patreon pledge of $1.07 (plus tax), Delta is free to help offset the CTF (Common Trace Facility) to allow AltStore PAL to support developers.

Delta occupies a legal gray area as a game emulator, which Apple only recently decided to support. Meanwhile, Testut claims that Clip must employ a number of workarounds in order to run in the background perpetually and that these workarounds “are all against App Store rules.” You should know that you can trust Clip if it can see everything you copy and paste on your phone, so there are probably good reasons for this. Nevertheless, you should think about it for yourself instead of depending on Apple to handle it for you.