AltStore PAL Drops Its Annual Subscription Thanks To a Grant From Epic (theverge.com) 10
AltStore PAL, a third-party iOS app store available in the EU, has eliminated its annual 1.50-euro subscription fee after receiving a "MegaGrant" from Epic Games. This grant was awarded for "innovation in app distribution," allowing AltStore to cover Apple's Core Technology Fee without charging users. The Verge reports: Epic uses MegaGrants as a way to "sponsor the development of exciting projects that may not otherwise have enough funding to fully realize," the company says. The grants are typically meant for smaller teams using Epic's technologies to "bring bold, challenging, and insanely creative dreams to life," but in this case, Epic awarded the grant for "innovation in app distribution," according to AltStore. AltStore didn't share the dollar value of the grant.
Current subscribers won't be charged when their renewal date rolls around, AltStore says. The AltStore team also plans to "show our appreciation for our existing subscribers in a future update" but didn't specify what that might look like.
Current subscribers won't be charged when their renewal date rolls around, AltStore says. The AltStore team also plans to "show our appreciation for our existing subscribers in a future update" but didn't specify what that might look like.
Old becomes new (Score:2)
This reminds me the old days of the Cydia and the rooted Apple phones. Free when there was no App Store, then branched into other alt stores, finally and slowly morphing into paid stores, until felt into the oblivion and irrelevance.
While I truly want these to succeed, this is the most likely outcome.
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I think what primarily did in Cydia was that Android phones evolved to the point where you'd pretty much have to be masochistic to stick with Apple's platform if you badly desired customization and the freedom to run whatever you wanted. If you own an iPhone, you likely prefer the iOS ecosystem for what it is. Apple's mobile hardware really isn't anything special these days. Hell, Apple doesn't even offer a compact phone anymore.
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Also, iOS improved to the point where many of the things you previously needed to hack your phone in order to do got built into the OS or got an API for apps to provide. When it first came out I had to root my phone to even get it to work in my country! And for a long time I had f.lux installed to change the colour temperature of the screen in the evenings. Neither of those requre hacking the phone anymore, so the effort of doing so began to outweigh the value-add.
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Then they missed functionality because of lack of implementation, now they do in a crusade to prevent execution of code not bundled with an app. For the most part it's just hitting emulators but that is because they are barely kept in check by competition and regulators, see the a-shell/iSH notarization mess. If they had the marketpower and were left alone by regulators they'd deprecate HTML too for more control and ability to Apple tax.
The money all winds up with Apple. (Score:2, Funny)
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It's worse than that. This is Epic winning ... while spending money generated from their massive size to distort a market and decide on winners, the very definition of monopolizing. Think about that next time Epic complains about other companies being unfair.
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Don't spend all your tears, wait till the EU uses it's monopoly on force to tell Apple they are still not compliant to find something to get sad about for your favourite trillion dollar corporation.
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Epic doesn’t want an open system on game consoles where they have cosy relationships with the gatekeepers.