[bt3]

What's the cross section of users willing to configure this setup (which requires the Mac app host) that want these "restricted" applications that also do not want to jailbreak their devices?

I suppose I am many years removed from the jailbreak scene so it's not clear to me if this represents a viable alternative for the regular user, and/or if Cydia is still functional. The latter of which was very much the defacto "aftermarket" app store.

[daveidol]

Jail breaking is increasingly difficult if you want any of the new phones or iOS versions. It’s becoming much harder these days.

I use this myself and love it. I get native YouTube and Instagram and others with no ads at all. Plus, things like Super Mario 64 running natively for iOS (build from the reverse engineered source port).

All on the latest iOS and iPhone models. Never have to worry about an OTA update either.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

As answered in a sibling comment, if you want Delta, or really any decent emulator on iOS, this is basically your only choice. I think Riley envisioned this to be used for other things outside of Delta, but it’s been around for over half a decade now and no other huge, significant driving use cases has been knocking down the AltStore doors. Perhaps that’s a good thing, because Delta has always existed in quasi acceptable territory for Apple, and further attention might force Apple’s hand into killing it entirely.

Interestingly it also I think helps Apple argue for the walled garden use case. If walled garden was so bad and people are itching to side load their apps, why aren’t there a shit ton more apps on AltStore? It’s not like Riley wouldn’t welcome other use cases. And I don’t think it’s particularly difficult for either developers or end users to use this workaround. It leads me to believe that really people don’t want sideloaded apps as much as HN would lead us to believe, or there would at least be someone other than Riley using AltStore.

[waboremo]

It can't help Apple argue for a walled garden while simultaneously remaining small out of fear of Apple ending the project. No reputable companies are going to rely on a project under the whims of Apple maybe potentially killing it overnight.

[daveidol]

There are actually hundreds of apps and communities using AltStore and similar sideloading methods. Check out /r/sideloaded

[ultrarunner]

I would love to jailbreak my iPhone, if only to get a parametric EQ (EQE) so that Apple's music app sounds decent with their Powerbeats Pro while I'm running. That's it.

Unfortunately, there's no SEP exploit for my phone, so I'd have to disable passcode (and Apple Pay). I did this for a few years, but when I replaced my phone it was on a newer iOS that wasn't jailbreakable.

Seriously, Apple, just make throw an equalizer at Apple Music and I'll come back and pay for it.

[crossroadsguy]

Depends upon what all can it offer.

Does it have a proper call recorder app?

Does it have something that lets me configure notifications and alert for different SIMs (for call alerts at least) differently?

Maybe let see and manage different SMS from different SIMs differently in a visually different way.

Etc.

But instead it seems to offer a game emulator as its USP. Which is useless for me as I have never played and do not want to play games on a phone.

So it depends what “boundaries” really does these apps or app-stores push.

[redcitylights]

This works on Windows, plenty of devices or iOS versions are without a jailbreak, and plenty of users don’t want to jailbreak. It’s not exactly an alternative to Cydia either.

[simsla]

My banking app and my work's email/calendar disallow jailbreaks so that makes it a pretty tough sell these days.