After Apple rejected their app, Riley Testut and Shane Gill built AltStore — an independent app store that gives indie developers new ways to distribute software, connect with users, and leverage the open social web.
AltStore co-founders Riley Testut and Shane Gill are the perfect example of necessity being the mother of invention. When Apple denied the launch of their retro video game app, Delta, in 2016, they realized that indie app developers needed another solution — one that could bring apps to communities without Apple dictating the rules and taking a cut.
Founded in 2019, AltStore is that solution. The creators of the first decentralized app store share their journey, including what an open app store means for developers and how they’re investing in the fediverse.
The conversation includes:
1:11 Genesis of AltStore
3:00 Getting Delta in Apple’s App Store
5:34 The Fortnite factor
8:10 The value of an alternative app store
12:04 The difference between putting an app in AltStore v App Store
14:41 Indie market for apps
18:03 Ecosystem safety
21:30 Is AI increasing the total number of apps out there?
22:45 Vibe coding and paths for app distribution
24:42 Fediverse and eureka moment
32:26 People-powered discovery — a broader movement
34:29 Building communities around apps
36:44 Patreon integration, supporting developers directly
38:38 Curating apps and source collections
40:07 Solutions for in-app payments
43:27 Pieces of the next generation ecosystem
45:56 Decentralizing app innovation
46:32 Relationship with Apple now
51:23 What’s on the horizon for AltStore
54:21 How to experience AltStore
Referenced:
🔎 You can find Riley and Shane at https://altstore.io/.
✚ Connect with host Mike McCue at @mike@flipboard.social and @mmccue.bsky.social.
🌊 Catch the wave! Surf the open social web and create your own custom feeds at surf.social, a new product from the people at Flipboard. https://about.surf.social/
Disclosure: Dot Social host Mike McCue serves on the board of AltStore.
This transcript was generated by AI, which may affect its accuracy. As such, we apologize for any errors in the transcript or confusion in the dialogue.
Welcome to Dot Social, the first podcast to explore the open social web. Each episode, host Mike McCue talks to leaders and builders who believe that decentralization makes for a better internet.
Today, Mike talks with Riley Testut and Shane Gill, founders of AltStore, the first decentralized app store. Riley and Shane are the perfect example of necessity being the mother of invention. A decade ago, Apple denied the launch of their retro video game app called Delta.
The experience showed them that indie app developers needed another solution — one that could bring apps to communities without Apple dictating the rules and taking the cut.
AltStore is that solution.
One quick disclosure before we start, you should know that Mike sits on the board of AltStore.
We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Mike McCue:
I've been excited to get a chance to work with you guys, and so excited about how what you're doing with the AltStore and how you've been embracing the fediverse as a part of that. And really, you know, looking forward to talking about all that. Maybe a good place to start is, how did, what was the inspiration for the AltStore? How did the, how did you guys get going on this idea?
Riley Testut:
It all just happened organically. It's how I can think of it is. Long story short, I was in high school, and I was just making apps on the side. And then I ended up making a game way better that, like, I could install on my friends devices and, like my phones, just to, like to play old Pokemon. And I just put this like random app on GitHub for like other developers to install, and then it just, it kind of turned out a lot of people wanted to play Pokemon on their phone and stuff like that. And so I was like, oh, you know what? This is a weird, like, niche that people aren't really going after. And so what I then want to do is I wanted to make an emulator for the app store. I wanted to get it in the app store and make it official. And so I literally, like, went to Apple in the 10 years. Back in 2015 I went to WWDC, and I talked to App Review, and I was like, Hey, can I put this image that I'm working on in the app store? And they were like, yeah, that'd be great. We'd love that. We just want to, like, review the games and stuff in it, but we would love to have that app. And so basically, because Apple told me this, I then spent, like, the first two years of my college I've been in college building what became delta. And then when I, like, tried to submit it to Apple again, they told me, Oh no, no, no, no, we're not going to allow that. After all, it was just like, why did you say I could? Why should I just spend two years building this project that you're just not going to allow? And so then, based long story, I was frustrated, but I had this app ready to distribute, and so I had to find some other way to do it. And that's what led to all store was just trying to get this emulator out in the world somehow, because I thought it should exist.
Mike McCue:
And ultimately it did get into the App Store, right?
Riley Testut:
It did, but not till like, six years later, which, yeah, Shane can go into more here. But, like, we had to go from this really proof of concept AltStore that, like, could install apps onto your phone, but it was really janky, and then eventually become a real legitimate App Store. And that was a whole adventure.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, exactly like, you know, we had AltStore, which was this community focused side loading tool to, like, help distribute, you know, apps that people were sort of finding on the internet. And then suddenly we're taking notice that the EU and the European Commission are putting together legislation to say, Hey, Apple, you know, Google, that you have to allow sort of competition on your OSS like all the way down to iOS, like you have to allow for competitive app stores. Other people can compete with the App Store itself. And so that being put out gave us sort of the motivation to say, hey, let's take this community project and actually turn it into a legitimate App Store, you know, competitor, in a way, and just have something out there that gives people another option besides the App Store. And going through that process meant, okay, now we're going to release Delta officially on our app store, and that's going to be a highlight for us, and Apple, you know, saw that, and saw competition happening, and was like, Okay, we're going to actually just allow emulators on the App Store, because we can't have this other app store saying they're allowing this really cool app, and they're the only ones that have it, and the only reason we're not doing it is, you know, for Some unknown sort of reason, and so it was really great opportunity for us to sort of showcase the whole concept.
Riley Testut:
It proved the whole point. We're like, Yeah, competition. We exist for a day. And all of a sudden, Apple changes the rules to all emulators, and then we launched delta in the App Store, and it becomes the number one app in the world. And we're just like, What a concept like this, what we've been saying the whole time, yes, it was wild.
Mike McCue:
So the existence of the AltStore, ultimately is what got Apple to change their mind in getting and allowing Delta to go into their app store.
Riley Testut:
Yeah, 100% and because they were holding us up from launching for almost two months, and until then, they changed the App Store rules, and then the next day, they allowed us to launch our app store. And so, wow, I wonder what was happening that whole time.
Mike McCue:
During that time, there was this whole thing going on with Fortnite as well, right? How did that play in to how you guys were looking at all this?
Riley Testut:
I think it's a good question, because we were seeing everything Fortnite was doing, and like, it was very like, aligned with what we were doing, but we thought it was kind of approach, it from different angle. We thought epic was like, very much trying to go after the money. They were like, trying to, like, just to lower the 30% fees. And we were more focused on, we think there are ideas that should exist. There's a bunch of cool ideas and apps that are rejected, that never survived a day. But so we kind of thought we were always on different sides of this, like this battle, but then randomly, they send us an email one day, like, a couple months after we launched AltStore, just saying, Hey, we love what y'all are doing. We would love to put Fortnite on your store and, like, help promote y'all because we're on the same side here against Apple. And then that was very interesting, because at first I was very skeptical. I was like, there are competitors. Like, objectively, they're, like, our biggest competitors, but we it was fun because Shane even, like, really convinced me, like, we should, like, talk, hear them out, see what they want to say.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, I had just some feeling, I guess, that it was seeming like maybe that their goal, I can, you know, like, because we're relatively or we're are in the same space, there had to be some figuring that maybe they see this as, like, we're all on the same side, against Apple, to some degree. And like, maybe they'd be willing to help us, just seeing that we're the other biggest names, sort of in this alternative App Store world. And so then they did come to us and said, essentially, yeah, we think that promoting alternative App Stores is the biggest thing, and that, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats is, like their their North Star on this concept. And so they just wanted to make sure that they were doing the most for us, that we could, and we would also partner with them to basically give a stamp on each other and say, like, hey, we all believe in, like, competing against Apple and allowing for this, like we believe in the ECS digital markets act, and we want it to succeed and prove out the concept. And so we should all just be holding hands and saying that together and making sure everyone knows that, you know, even though we're doing different things or maybe have even slightly different philosophies, that at the end of the day, it still is trying to get the ability to compete against Apple as something,
Mike McCue:
yeah. I mean, you're giving developers and users choice, right? And, and that's a big that's a big thing to be able to provide. I mean, there are millions of apps, and they're, you know, apps. There's a few that get, you know, very well known and are readily discovered. And then there's, like millions of others that just have an incredibly hard time getting discovered, right? And so it seems as though that, you know, having a healthy ecosystem around apps on iOS, you know, having another way for those apps to get discovered in another kind of an alts App Store seems like it would be beneficial, and Apple would be supportive of that concept. And, you know, and you know, it benefits users, benefits developers. It's not like you're competing with Apple in the sense of, like, oh, you know, you're trying to create, a completely alternative model for app distribution that you know is like, if I build an app, I want to put it in both stores, right? Is that how you guys think about it? Yeah, is that how Apple thinks about it?
Riley Testut:
Apple thinks we're trying to steal the apps in the App Store. They think it's a zero sum game, and we've always think that's been ridiculous, because we've like, you've nailed it. We've always viewed ourselves as an additional thing to the App Store. Like the App Store exists, and that's a really good thing. We love the App Store, but then it results in these weird things, like it means some certain apps don't exist, or it means just some apps are hard to be discovered just by the nature of the App Store. So we view all stores. Hey, you can put an app that, if you can't get in the App Store, put an AltStore, or if you just want additional exposure, put in AltStore. Because, like, our users are, like, a slightly different crowd. They're slightly more technical. They're people who are really excited about trying out, like indie apps, like that's actually one of my favorite things, is we've got to see some complete like complete indies make popular apps on AltStore Because they've made a certain like, there's one of our most popular developers, SizziQ. They have a bunch of apps that, like, let you replace the camera control to open the Notes app, or you can change the Siri button to open not Siri like little stuff like that. But then Apple does not promote that in the app store. They hate it because they're like, We don't want people to do this, but we're like, this is so cool and so that people are finding these apps in AltStore, and then the developer is getting well known just for making these fun little like, just cool utilities that should exist.
Shane Gill:
The analogy I've found that I like to use that works pretty well is comparing, like, I mean, ironically, but you know, there's Spotify for people, or, you know, like a traditional music streamer for bigger artists who, you know, they have to go through the proper distribution channels and kind of, you know, get their songs approved for streaming, right? And those go out there. But then there's also SoundCloud, where people can just hit Upload, and it immediately uploads whatever file that they have, and it's more for just sharing ideas around to everybody who's sort of interested in music and Spotify, or any of the streamers are smart enough to realize that SoundCloud adds to music as a whole, like it helps improve the whole ecosystem as a whole, and so and that there is a place for both To exist because they serve sort of different purposes, even though you can just stream music, right? So I feel we're doing a similar thing of saying we're trying to get closer to that internet model of, like, here's the stuff that people just want to sort of upload, and people can find it, and it can be showcased in a different way, as, like, fun internet projects and ideas that people are trying, and then the App Store can keep doing their like, official business people have, you know, LLCs tied to these apps and like, they're doing all the proper channels, stuff like, and both can do their thing, and it improves the ecosystem overall. And I think that that's kind of what we see ourselves as doing with with AltStore.
Mike McCue:
Yeah. So if you're an indie developer, you have an idea for an app. Writing that app is one thing. Getting that app distributed and discovered is a whole other thing. And if you look at putting it into the app the Apple App Store, how much lift is that compared to like putting it into the AltStore?
Riley Testut:
there's, there's a lot because it like Apple really expects that every piece of software that goes to the App Store is like a final, complete product, and that makes sense for like products. But there's so many pieces of software that don't fulfill that, like that are really like thrown together a weekend, that don't have a full business model and stuff, but then Apple doesn't want that stuff. And so there's this huge gap from building the app to then, Oh, it's good enough for the App Store. And that's also, that's also why we see test fight has become, like, this weird middle ground, because, like, people just want to put their apps out there, but it's not. Apple will allow for the app store because of the like, they have quality control reasons, which is something they could do, but then it means nothing can exist on the platform unless it's up to that. And so it's really a chicken and egg situation where, like, people just want to put something out there, validate the idea and then improve on it, but Apple's like, no, build the entire app first, then we'll decide if it should be done, allowed or not, but it's just like a Yeah, huge barrier for entry, just if you just want to make something for fun.
Shane Gill:
And I mean, we, we've absolutely seen this with especially the rise and, like aI coding tools like giving people the ability to feel like that, they can put something together very quickly, and then they're running into the App Store, and realizing that the submission process is actually, like, going to be the hardest part of getting their app out to people. And I think that especially seeing that sort of disparity happen in real time, of like, oh, I put this together really quickly, and it's like, technically working, and I kind of want to share this idea, and then realizing that to submit it to the App Store, is a whole process in itself, on top of needing to pay the developer fee and, like, going through that whole ordeal. And I think having that disparity has really shown that, like, oh, maybe not everything is, like, built for the App Store, because, you know, there's some things that really just need to be uploaded with all the basics and saying, like, Hey, this is just like my test app. Like, you could try it out, and, you know, people will mess around with it if they want. And it doesn't have to be a complete like idea just yet, it can just be, you know, the first steps towards something.
Mike McCue:
I don't think a lot of people fully appreciate this, that there's like, this indie market for apps, indie developers and users who are more technically minded, who you know don't worry so much about side loading. They want the flexibility. They want to reprogram their buttons on their phones. And I can see why Apple wouldn't want apps in the App Store that you know would confuse my mom or normal users, right? Or be like, draft, you know, based apps, and would sort of speak badly about the the Apple experience they're trying to curate, right? Yeah. So I totally see that and, and I think that, like, you know, your experience with delta is a great one, right? Where it's, you know, you build this really cool app. It's an emulator, and, you know, it does require a certain amount of like, technical understanding on how to use it, and then it takes, like, years before you can actually get it in the app store right. And I think that, like that, you had to hit some sort of critical mass to get to the point where that could finally happen.
If that never happened, it would have been a loss for everybody who loves that app. And I think that's the thing that's so interesting to me, is this, this opportunity of not only giving people choice, but giving developers an on ramp that's more more approachable, right, and allows for more iteration. And, you know, fast moving, changing ideas and giving those to users who want that, who are totally cool with that kind of like back and forth and the technical complexity,
Riley Testut:
Exactly No. That's philosophy, for sure. And we also have seen it like we view as positive, because then we pressure Apple to maybe change their own rules, like we've had like several apps now, like we launched a Windows emulator on AltStore, and then Apple changed their rules to allow Windows emulation. So now you can run Windows on your iPad from the App Store, and again, it's like, Oh, that. It's no and it's because it was on AltStore first. And we're like, this, this is competition. This is great. We love this. We don't mind that Apple changes their rules in response to us, because that means the process is working. We're now allowing more and more apps to exist for everyone worldwide, even outside of the EU. So to us, that just keeps proving the point. Whenever this happens every few months, we're like, oh yeah, another app now exists for everyone worldwide, because we exist in the EU and Japan.
Shane Gill:
And I definitely think it's exactly that, you know, we come from a time where I was, you know, doing everything off of my computer, and I got so used to, like, downloading software on laptops and feeling like, you know, I had, I could do anything, right? And slowly, over time, people have come accustomed to anything that the App Store allows is, like, all that you can do on your phone or your iPad, right? And I know that's not true, because, like, I'm still using my laptop, and I still see it every day, and I'm like, Guys, no, like, all the things that you've been doing over here, you should be able to do everywhere. It's just controlled differently. And I think that we're trying to sort of expose that that's the case and let developers know. Like, hey, you know, wouldn't it be great if you could just develop the iOS app you always wanted…
Riley Testut:
…without changing iOS. Like, we don't want to change the sandboxing, we don't want to change the infrastructure security. We just want to exist within the realm of what the operating system allows. That's like our biggest thing, which is different from jailbreaking, which is when you really are, like, just tinkering with the system, which we are not advocating for.
Mike McCue:
I've heard various folks, including Apple say, Well, this is the Wild West, if you you know, you could really create some serious, you know, issues for users, security risks, you know, porn, you know, all sorts of you know concerns here. What's your take on that? How do you guys think about the the ecosystem of apps that are on the AltStore? You know, are they dangerous? Are they? Are they full of hate speech? Like, how do you guys approach all that?
Riley Testut:
It's a good question. I think one of the things that can be frustrating, but is also a huge benefit to us, is Apple does approve every app for our store, which is the thing most people don't know, but like, Apple will notarize an app for AltStore, which means a human at Apple actually downloaded the app and checked it out for malicious and dangerous content. So That, by itself, is actually a very nice service for people to trust us, because it means Apple's at least signed off on the security measure on that and so once it's passed that review, the stuff that's left is like content, like philosophically, Apple may not want porn, or they may want not want, like vaping or stuff like that. Or they may not want emulators, like just there may be different types of content. But our response to that has always been, have you used Safari on the phone? Like, right?
You can act like spoiler like, yeah. You can very easily, and it's like so we view it like the open web, where, I think the open web is a natural way of like, you discover it yourself. You're looking for things. We don't want to curate that stuff for you. But I think this I should mention. AltStore is decentralized, and that's very intentional to kind of settle this balance of we want everything in AltStore by default to be 100% kosher. Everything great, like no question. So the only things in AltStore by default are our own apps, like delta or clipboard manager. But then it's up to you to go find apps on the web, like from a developer's website, and then you add that app to your AltStore from the web. So it means you've explicitly found an app outside of AltStore and have opted in to then installing it, and then from that point on, it's an AltStore. You get updates through AltStore, but it's up to you to discover it from the web. And that's, I think, what allows us to exist where we're like, it really is up to consumers to find stuff, and we're not like, putting stuff in front of people they don't want. Don't want to see. They're explicitly opting into the stuff, just like a website, just like at the desktop, right?
Shane Gill:
I do think it's very much just taking the internet browser approach of, you know, you open Chrome and it's a blank screen, but we're saying, Hey, if you put in a URL, then we'll show you the app that you're looking for, and we just operate on sort of the same philosophy of, you know, everyone has Internet browsers, and we've all managed like the world still turning right, so we can sort of adopt that same sort of concept and really just make a browser that is built for finding and using apps and downloading apps, right? But AltStore is just sort of like a browser, but it's a store also because we've gone through the official channels and made it so it's still going and downloading apps, and you even still get those sort of security checks that you are afforded with iOS, that it's hard to still download, like complete malware out of like thin air, like there's still checks to make sure that. And even on your computer, those same checks like exist to some degree.
Mike McCue:
So I think that, you know, obviously, makes a tremendous amount of sense, especially in a world where there are a lot more apps that people can create now because of things like Cloud code and, you know, there's all, all of the ability now for many more people to build apps. Are you guys seeing an increase in the total number of apps that are happening because of, you know, all of the AI, you know, tools that now available?
Riley Testut:
We’re definitely seeing a lot of interest. Like, people are asking a lot more about, like, how do I distribute apps? What's the easiest way to do that? Or, how could I put it out on AltStore? And it's and that's how we're seeing, man, they're running right up against these wall, or just one wall, which is like, they build it in a day, and it'll take them weeks to figure out how to submit it to the App Store. It's just like, absurd. Like, come on this Apple, this can't be the hardest part of the process. Coding should be the hardest part, right? So, yeah, so that's been happening, so we are wanting to do what we can to make the process easier for those developers. And so, like, that's constantly something we're trying to discuss in the background. Like, how can we really make it just as simple as possible? Like, to distribute, like with AltStore, like using an agent, like having MCP, stuff like that, we could do a bunch of basic stuff just to make it completely automatable for these developers, which is what they want, instead of having to go through the whole Apple thing in a world where creating an app is a much more approachable idea, you know, getting as an indie developer, getting that app distributed and discovered, you know, is going to be increasingly important.
Mike McCue:
Yeah, I think it's really interesting the timing of all this as it relates to what's happening on the, you know, on the vibe coding front, yeah, I've talked to now a bunch of different people in Silicon Valley, here in Palo Alto, who, you know, there's one mom at a at a our daughter's basketball game, and she's decided that she's going to build this really cool app to make it much easier for people who are filling out all the school paperwork that you have to do with your kids. It's incredibly annoying, yeah, just make it fundamentally easier and better. And, and she can actually vibe code this thing. She's actually doing it. You know, this was an impossible idea before, yeah, and, but, you know, the very next thing is like, Okay, well, now how do you get it distributed? How do you get it discovered?
Riley Testut:
Yeah, exactly, but No, exactly. Just it is so cool, though, for those types of instances, like, yes, it's great that we can just make these one off ideas that could have existed before. And like, I love that so much.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, and especially that it's these younger developers, too, who may be, like, running in sort of to the realities of the world. And there's like, I just, I thought of this. I I'm just sort of having fun. Can I please, like, put this out to my friends? And like, I think that that concept really highlights, like, why something like alters needs. Like, if you were trying to send an app to your friends, going through the whole app store process seems sort completely absurd. At that point, we're like, this is, this is really just for the people at my school. Like, it's, that's all it's for.
Mike McCue:
And, yeah, even something like test flight still kind of hard to, you know, set up. People have to. It's just, it is, yeah, there's, there's a tremendous amount of friction of like, creating an app and getting it into the hands of someone else. You know, you mentioned that the AltStore is built in this sort of decentralized model. One of the things that I'm been particularly excited about is the work you guys have been doing in the fediverse, which is why I ended up joining your board in full disclosure.
Riley Testut:
Great to have you. You know, I think what you're doing here to not just create an on ramp for these indie developers, but also to sort of recast how discovery happens and how communities can be built around these apps. Tell us a little bit about like, how did you think about this idea of integrating the fediverse into the alt story to begin with, and how, where is, where are you taking that? Yeah, no, that's great, because I love what we're doing so much for the fediverse, because it really solves so many things for us all at once, and it just when we basically long story. Yeah, we were I love Twitter. Twitter was, like, my favorite service in the world, my favorite app. I use, tweet bot, but I was on Twitter, and then Elon took over Twitter, and then all of the developers I followed left, I hated the content on there, and so that was like, Okay, fine. Switched masks on, and just immediately, like, love the ideas off the bat. Like the people there are great. But then, like, the longer we were there, the more clear it became to us. There are meant so many parallels with what, yeah, what we're doing. And the fediverse, like, yeah, we're decentralized. This fediverse very decentralized. we have a very ideals about taking back power from big tech very similar stuff with better verse and so. Our own like ActivityPub server, where you could optionally choose to federate your apps to like. If you have an app on AltStore, you could opt into what we saw, discoverability, kind of following maston's precedent, of like by default. You don't want discoverable, but if you want to opt into being searchable, you can. We were like, what if we made it so that people could all developers would opt into being on our Mastodon server, and then on our Mastodon server, arc server, you could then view all the apps on AltStore. You can view all the app updates on AltStore. You can view all the news alerts in AltStore. Basically, we're taking all the stuff in AltStore and making it so that you could view it from the web. And we're like, Well, this is perfect, because that was such a chicken egg problem. The first place was all this stuff was an AltStore, but Google wanted to know what apps were an AltStore, and we had to install it, but then you could only install it in the EU or Japan. And so this allowed us to wait just go to a website you can now see like basically just like that, by hooking up your apps to the fediverse, to all store now all your apps are discoverable. They have their own accounts. You can follow apps and app updates, and then it's like, that was like, the basis of the next crew from there. Because, like, now you can like apps in AltStore with, like your Mastodon account or Bluesky account, and there's a bunch of cool stuff like that.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, I think we really saw and especially because, you know, delta and GBA for iOS, before that really got big from there being a Twitter presence, right, and being able to share on social, and we still see that in a lot of our theory with AltStore has been, people don't necessarily find like. They don't go to the App Store and just see what's happening there. They hear about it online, on social media, and we wanted to take that and then we see what's happening with the social web and and that Mastodon is announcing this product where they will help, like us, build a server. And we think, Okay, well, what if, when people you know put out app updates, they put out a new app, they put out a notification, what if we could federate those so that they would just automatically be dispersed to people across, like the entire social web. So, because we're seeing that, oh, you can follow from anywhere you want, and you can see all these feeds, and we just thought, oh, it'd be great if we could sort of recreate this concept that we loved from, you know, viral apps on Twitter, but made it like fit, sort of the decentralized model in this new age way of thinking, and we could automate this for these indie devs who are just kind of getting started. It's like, Hey, we're already making social media posts for you, if you just, like, release your app, and now they can be shared. And people could find it easier. And you, all you have to do is sort of do the stuff you're doing on AltStore, and all this social interaction. Discoverability just happens automatically, if you want.
Riley Testut:
I think that's like the key as well. It's like, we're talking a lot about how technically works. But what I'm most excited about about how much of this really is abstracted away from the actual user using AltStore. Like, from the average consumer perspective, they're in AltStore, they see an app, they can like the app. They just one button tap, and then behind the scenes, it goes to ActivityPub, and like we were scored it, and then we also bridge to Bluesky. But to them, it's just, oh, you can like apps, or I can like Mike the Suez alert, or sometimes in their feed and like Bluesky or something, they'll just see an app update appear, and they just want to think about it, and that's why I love it's like they're just gonna see apps outside of AltStore, and then in all store they can now have a whole social layer. And we'll we're gonna have the ability like to comment on apps in AltStore, which then you could also comment from, like Mastodon or Bluesky or threads even. And so it's just like, it's really cool when you see all in one place, like and also you can do all likes on an app, and it tells you it's from Bluesky. This is from threads. It's from mastodon. And so it's really cool to see it come together without being so in people's face of like, how technical it is, right?
Mike McCue:
And that's crucial. I mean, the App Store is inherently, you know, it has people involved. People leave reviews and they rate the app, and that's important and vital to, you know, knowing whether I should download an app, right? And so it makes perfect sense to just have that be the social web, rather than creating a completely new sort of walled garden, you know, and I have to sign up and create an account to leave a review, and, you know, blah, blah, blah, right?
Shane Gill:
You know, because on the App Store, you know, you wouldn't necessarily know the developer. Like, that's presented to you as it is in the App Store, but it's nicer if it was just presenting sort of their fediverse profile, their Mastodon profile, right? And you go, Oh, I know this person from Mastodon, like they're the developer of this app. Like, that's kind of the connection we see happening all the time, and we're just trying to make that Mia, yeah, make it obvious like that. That's the connection that's happening.
Mike McCue:
That's incredible, yeah. I mean, I think that is truly visionary. I mean, you know the concept of taking what is a normal, expected behavior, being able to leave review for an app, rate an app, and have that being actually decentralized, where people can much more readily do that, and where that those if I review an app right, and someone's following me, they're now going to discover that that that app exists, right. And that's a huge part of discovery that like people, you know, whereas if I leave a review in the app store, the only people who see it in the Apple App Store is the people who are looking at that app. They're already looking at, and they don't know it's necessarily me that left that review right?
Riley Testut:
Yeah, no, exactly, exactly, it and that that's, that's the thing,
Mike McCue:
I think is really going to be exciting to see how this plays out, because I think this is part of a broader movement people power discovery, right? Algorithmic discovery has its merits, but it also has its downsides. But people power discovery, where you know, if someone that we know and respect leaves an app review, aositive app review about an app, I may well then discover that app and now start to use it because that other person effectively endorsed it, and that's fundamentally better than like, relying on me to go to an app store in the first place, searching around, seeing what's featured, or what's in the top of the charts or whatever.
Instead, it's like, hey, you know, Mike Masnick left this amazing review for this really cool app. I want to go download that app now, right? And that is that I think is going to play out not just for apps, but for all sorts of different things, you know, as an alternative to you know, discovery on the web, where you know, it's been driven so much by Google and SEO now increasingly, it's going to be discovered more driven by People who are endorsing and recommending content and apps and other kinds of things, you know, out there on the web.
Riley Testut:
Yeah, not fully agree exactly. We're meeting people where they are. It feels like just going directly to them.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, very much like seeing the people who are fans of, you know, iOS indie dev apps or and the like, right? And now they're just being able to natively repost or comment on things, and you could just follow your keep following your favorite people, but they'll be now natively doing things with these apps that are on AltStore and giving that human recommendation that everyone's already sort of looking out for and really connecting with on a greater scale,
Mike McCue:
yeah, and it seems like it's the beginning of of the potential of having, like, communities built around an app, or a collection of apps, right? Like, do you guys see that happening at all
Riley Testut:
Where's, like, a little tiny bit, like, some apps we've had have, like, built up their own, like, little niche audience, like this is like, like this, this is a Japanese developer, and so they keep making a bunch of apps like are possible only in Japan, but so now people are like, following them, because they're the one making these cool little like, niche apps. And so that's fun to see. Or we had an app that allowed you to enable JIT on your like, just in time compilation on your phone for certain apps. And then that had a whole like, subgroup of people who were super pumped about that. And so it's kind of cool to like to like to see, like, these little, tiny communities arise around, like, one off or I should show I have modified my phone with an app from AltStore. I love it so much, but it's like, it's just Mario, and you can just just do jumping, like, and it's hilarious, but it's like something you could do on an AltStore app that's like, this stuff's just so fun.
Actually, there's been a little bit of transition. It seems like, I would say, in the past few months, we've seen more people kind of advocate on, like the social web to be telling other people to be putting their apps on AltStore and, like, sharing why they think that's cool. And that's been something that's kind of arisen recently. In addition to, there have been discords like forever like, forever. Like, Discord is still probably, like, the most popular way of doing it. Like, whenever, especially like a nerdy, technical app, gets popular, I would say there's a discord for that. But now I think we're starting to see more discoverability happen, like on the social web directly, where people will just post, I built this app, and then someone that replies and then tags AltStore, like, Have you considered putting on an AltStore, and then they'll start talking about, like, Oh, that's a cool idea. And that's a that's a more recent trend, and then, but people will then talk about it, and then people are building a community of, like, just wanting to be on, like, an open source app store, which aligns a lot with so open social, web and stuff like that.
Mike McCue:
Yeah. And I can see a scenario where you would have communities not formed just around a single app, but around a collection or a type of app, right? Like, for example, an emulator community, right? People are just totally into emulators. And of course, they would talk about delta, they talk about all sorts of other, you know, emulating kinds of apps. And that's a natural thing to form on something like the social web,
Riley Testut:
yeah. And that's also ties in with another big thing I think we do with all stores. We focus, like a lot, in that direct to developer relationship, and that's why we promote Patreon so much. In AltStore, we have our direct Patreon integration, and it means that you can support a developer directly, and then if you support a developer, you get access, like, to all of their apps. So it's not like this one to one transaction. It's a I want to support directly donate to a developer I like that I've already followed, and then that gives me, like, some nice little benefits. But most importantly, it means you're really supporting the developer. You're not paying for the product. And that really people really like in doing that's how we make all of our income. Is like, from Patreon. People donate to us, and they have just love what we're doing and want access, like, to want access, like to beta features. And we just think it's such a really cool system for this, like direct relationship, that the app store doesn't allow. You can't do donations, like for testified apps, you can't there's no way to monetize it. What we're monetizing our betas
Shane Gill:
Yes, exactly, where user’s relationship is always just with the app itself, for any one app, and we've managed just sort of organically with our Patreon and saying, like, okay, it's Riley and Shane's Patreon. Here's all the apps they build. And starts to form this, oh, here, here's this developer I like, and they make all of these different kinds of apps, or they make this kind of category of app, or maybe even I find a curator like, I find an indie curator who puts together a bunch of apps that I like, some sort of recommendation person, right? And it could take on all these forms where it's you're forming these communities around a person, or their thoughts about things like and less so, about just a very one to one, like, Okay, this is a weather app I like. And I don't know anything beyond that. I like this weather app, right? But now it can be actually expanded upon from that and be like, Oh, well, this weather app team also makes a calculator and a bunch of other utilities that people really like,
Mike McCue:
yeah, that's, that's a big deal too. This, this concept of, I mean, at the Apple App Store, there's a whole editorial team. And you know, people are specifically responsible for different kinds of the different types of apps and different sections of the App Store. And there's a whole, you know, effort used to sort of like, curate, and, you know, promote these different apps in these different categories. And I think that's one of the things that's really interesting about thinking about the AltStore in that it's anyone can be an app curator. In anyone can, like, take the different apps that are in the AltStore and combine them. It's like, here's all the best fitness apps, right? And here, here are the and you can have a whole community built around just fitness apps and the concept of fitness, and like using these apps. And, you know, that's super, super cool.
Riley Testut:
No, that's actually something we want to lean into even more in the future, because, like previous slide, this new update to all story we're releasing soon, we're adding what we're calling source collections, where it's like, we've now made like a listing of sources or like apps developers for our own curation. But we've been talking about allowing people to add curated lists from other people, so that you could just, like, similar to blue skies, like starter packs, like, just have people self curate a bunch of stuff, because there's so much out there, and people are constantly, like, wanting to find this stuff. And so I think it's a great thing. We could improve even more by having people have directly in AltStore their own curation algorithms or stuff like that.
Mike McCue:
How? How are you thinking about Patreon longer term, as part of the AltStore like D? Is this, like your Is this the way that you do in app payments? Is it via Patreon? Is that? Is that how to think about it?
Riley Testut:
It's one of the ways we would do in app payments. And currently we promote it. We say it's like the preferred way, because right now, in AltStore, you can do whatever you want. In the app, you can do whatever payment system you want. We don't take any commission of that. But in AltStore itself, we do have automatic Patreon integration. So we're kind of right now pitching it as, hey, if you want something that's just no like frills, just simple to use, just connect a Patreon account.
We'll make it work. But if you want to build your own payment system, go ahead, you get to build your payment system, but then do it. But then we do want to bridge that gap in the near future and offer our own like payment SDK, similar to like the App Store, because we know that's like, if you're already in the app store and you have, like, some subscription mechanism. You don't want to replicate that just to be an AltStore. And so we want to offer something just to make that easy, but it will always be optional, so you can always do it yourself if you want to. But that, I think, is the missing piece, is that we do want something that's like simple to use as like store kit, where you can have, like a shared payment system in AltStore if you want to use it, but like for Epic, they'll always do their own thing and have their own reporting system. And that's fine. It's like the web.
Shane Gill:
And the reason that we, you know, started with Patreon is just that they fit the mold of what we're doing. And of course, like we had already been using them before we even, you know, launched any payment options up front in old store, and it's just another tie in sort of to what we're doing, right of, we believe Patreon sort of promoted this developer relationship, you know, direct relationships with the creators and consumers. And so it was just a natural fit for us to sort of promote that idea of, hey, if you come to us, you can do this thing that you can't do on maps, or you can't have your Patreon out there for people to sign up from, from the App Store to, like, download an app, right? And we just wanted to showcase that, Hey, there's this other way that things could be done in general. And then it also happens to open up these other benefits. You know, you can have a discord through your Patreon. You can chat directly with users through like, patreon's portal. And we were just saying, like, you know, maybe people will want to use these other tools, these other community building tools, to have people like, that's where they buy in. That's where they interact with
Riley Testus:
like, what are the biggest ones? Like, you can offer refunds through Patreon. You can't do that in the App Store as a developer. You cannot give a refund to your customer, you have to ask your customer to ask Apple, pretty please, can I get a refund? And it's absurd. First, on Patreon, someone says, oh, I signed up. I'm not really a fan. I'm like, Sure, no worries, refund. It's just like, let us just happen. It's so simple, but man, like, it's kind of wild. Finally, not being inside of Apple's control for everything. And then going back to Apple like, oh my god, there's just so many things you take for granted outside of the Apple App Store walls.
Mike McCue:
Yeah, I, you know, I think, by the way, also full disclosure, I'm also on the board of Patreon, so I'm very excited that you guys have built around Patreon. Patreon has this vibe of, you know, it's all about how indie artists, indie creators, indie developers, can support their work and can actually make a living building, you know, creating things that other people love and and so everything about Patreon is set up for that. And I think that's, you know, it's so exciting to see how that's being used that, you know, of course, Mastodon, that's a big way that people support Mastodon is through Patreon.
And you know, that was one of the things that got me excited about Patreon, joining the Patreon board, because, you know, I see a connection there with the social web and how, ultimately, there could be, you know, more discovery on the social web for these independent artists, creators, developers, yeah, so, yeah. I think, I think it's really cool to see the pieces of a next generation ecosystem for these independent developers starting to come together with how you guys are thinking about this. One of the things I love about what you've done is that you didn't just build it all yourself. Like, here's just another clone of the the App Store. You know, you're like, thought it through. Like, okay, what is where? Where can we add value? Where does the social web add value? How can other people be curating? How can we integrate other forms of payment systems that are, you know, more developer friendly and and building not just an app like for the AltStore, but creating a movement, an overall ecosystem, and that's super exciting.
Riley Testut:
Thank you for saying that, because, yeah, that's is something that we've kind of trying really hard to do, because we think this is bigger than AltStore. This is like Software Freedom. It's just like, we just want to have developers be able to put their ideas about in the world. We think the mobile economy is really boring right now. We Yeah, just want to get more ideas flowing and focus on that stuff.
Shane Gill:
Yeah. I think it really helped that, from the onset, AltStore had to be built with, okay, how, how is this? How can this be different than the App Store? Because that was the only way it could exist for so long. And so from that has spurred all of these, you know, unique quirks that tied us into other communities that are online and and I think building up from that, just naturally, it was like, Okay, well, how do we serve the audience that we serve, and that led us down different paths, because we were just already on these kinds of roads, right?
Mike McCue:
It feels like you know, you are decentralizing the innovation. You're allowing more people to innovate and to create, do creative things with apps that otherwise wouldn't have happened.
Riley Testut:
Yeah, that's our entire philosophy is, like the original app store. What made it, what it was so incredible was those indie developers who were there day one, the beer drinking app, Doodle Jump. That's what made the eye saver app, yeah, like, exactly. And we've lost sight of that. And so our entire thesis for everything is that bring the Indies, give them the power
Mike McCue:
What is your relationship with Apple like now? Are you guys mortal enemies? you friends? Is it complicated?
Riley Testut:
It’s complicated? It's a good, like, frenemy situation. It's, yeah, we really tried to be super aligned with them when we started all this, like when we launched AltStore, pal officially, we're trying to be like, we want to exist, coexist with Apple. We don't want to piss them off. We just want to, like, be the extra App Store, but they would just like not give us anything. They would not budge. They would be just as stonewalling to us as they would be to Epic. And so we kind of had to learn for ourselves. Apple is taking advantage of our kindness. We can't just be kind to them. And so it became more of a now we reach out to them when we need when there's an issue, they will help us if there's a bug on something, but if there's anything like beyond like, like, they will be they reject apps for our store still, or they'll hold up apps for our store. And we kind of just don't have a lot of recourse with that, and I don't know, so it's just a frustrating back and forth. And, yeah, so weird the dynamic
Shane Gill:
yeah, I think it's the class like, you know, it's compliance relationship, right? They are forced by the law to have a relationship with us. It can't be such that our app store doesn't work at all right? Because that would be illegal. It has to be something where our we're able to operate our business and so, but they are still the owners of iOS, so that's sort of the relationship that we have. And otherwise, they still need to point at us. As you know, they do a lot of finger pointing of, oh, alternative app stores. They're not great. They're just going to create security concerns and allow all sorts of strange content, and they'll just try to point at us, and that means we're forced to sort of point out hypocrisies, right? And take digs and be like, hey, you know, there's other things that are not great with the App Store, too. It's not just this, like everyone's doing their best here. And we're, you know, we're not evil. We're just, we want to get out like an emulator, you know, to people,
Riley Testut:
I will say, at least, our contacts at Apple are very great, and I'm thankful for them. They do what they can to help us out when, sometimes, when we read out to them, we are aware of, okay, can you help us here or nothing? But, like, they, the people we talk to, at least, are helpful, but yeah, just the higher ups are definitely not a fan of us. It's sort of like you guys are pushing them out of their comfort zone a little bit, yeah, you know, pushing them to go back to their roots in some ways. Like, that's the whole idea. Like, we love Apple. We're huge Apple fans. We want them to do what they should be.
Mike McCue:
It's a good kind of corporate lesson, like how can you help encourage those indie developers in ways that allow them to push apps out there faster, with less friction, without all the overhead, and embrace what you guys are doing. And it seems like they sort of kind of are, begrudgingly, partly because of regulatory pressure. But the fact that they're reviewing your apps and that you guys are still talking to them and collaborating at some level, it's like, I'm hopeful that like You know, just like they saw with the emulator that they're going to start to realize, wait a minute. Like the social web is core to discovery of apps and that would be good for the overall app store also. And we should like figure out a way to have a, you a bet, you know, multiple different types of app stores that are geared around different kinds of audiences. not just about one size fits all.
Riley Testut:
we still view ourselves as we think we help Apple like Apple doesn't want all the apps in the App Store. We will take those apps like we will Apple. We want you to have your curation like I get it, have a curated App Store, is just allow the non apps that you don't want somewhere else. And we just think like that is a good compromise. And so hopefully Apple realizes that, because I think it's what they want, they they don't like having to put apps on the App Store that they don't want, but like that are too strategic for them not to have.
Mike McCue:
Right. This is like a proving ground. Yeah. For like with an audience that sort of wants to be in a proving ground, right? It's, it's, it's this kind of one size fits all model that I think creates those kinds of pressures where they don't want to have like the unpredictable apps.
Riley Testut:
Yeah, and also like politically, like the ICE apps. I don't think Apple wanted to remove all these ICE detection location apps, but Right, they are the choke point. So right, because they're the only ones the government has that power when we're like Apple, I feel like you would also want them to exist, even if it was in the app, like there are aligned incentives. But yes, they have to realize that. I think,
Mike McCue:
yeah, yeah, that's another fantastic point, you know, that is that, you know, the political pressure on something like an app store, which is highly centralized, is immense, you know, and it's not just the US, it's China, it's other other places as well. And that is a very powerful, you know, component of how the app store and how apps, you know, come to, you know, exist in the world. And there's going to be political pressure on some of these apps, for sure.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, I mean, we even saw it like largely with the TikTok tobacco too. like not that it necessarily solves it to just have them have put it on AltStore, but it just sort of showcased the idea that Apple was the only game in town and that everything was going to come down to whether or not Apple decides to do this or not.
Mike McCue:
Well, as you, as you guys, look to the future here, you know, this year, let's say, what are some of the big things you see on the horizon for the AltStore, and this, this whole indie app ecosystem?
Riley Testut:
I would say, I would I really see the fediverse really growing to its own open like the social web, growing into a huge part of the Al story this year. Because, like, we've been wanting to do this for so long, and we've had, like, working on it, and we're finally gonna, like, release this, the final version of it. I think we're going to see that. I don't know how it's going to go, but I just think that's going to lead to so much more this year. I think we're going to find so many more apps that we didn't find before, because people will be excited to put, like, fediverse apps on AltStore, because, like, oh, AltStore is federated. It'd be cool to make a fediverse app and put it also on AltStore. So I think that'll be a significant movement this year is really like embracing the social web
Shane Gill:
And I think that will tie in nicely with our expansion into new countries, you know, like, as the laws change in more places. You know, we had Japan at the end of last year as, like, the first country after the EU and I think tying in this social web element with the expansion into new areas means, like, a dynamic sort of sharing of what's going on in this space and the conversation around, oh, an actual alternative to the App Store. A lot of people just haven't even really conceptualized it. We found out, even people in the EU don't know that this law was passed, right? So I think it's really just about the organic marketing of it, until it keeps expanding and then reaches like a boiling point. And, you know, more people are aware of like this idea and are just going and trying it out, just because it's something interesting to do.
Mike McCue:
Yeah, it's, it's interesting because you would think that like Apple, you know, they're continually getting regulatory pressure around being, you know, a monopoly of some kind, you know, one way or another for apps.
And this would lessen that pressure, right? Rather than having the, you know, government come up with some concept of, like breaking up Apple or something weird like that, which, you know, would have mixed success problems, right? Instead, like, you know, figure out a way to have this ecosystem more opened up, right? And just that alone, I think, you know, would take a lot of the pressure, it seems to me, regulatory pressure off of Apple.
So it feels like, you know, as we continue to sort of see all these indie app developers who are building vibe coding apps, and there's, you know, the social web starts to take off with what you guys are doing. I can see, I can see a world where, like, just as, you know, Delta, ultimately, was on, you know, brought on to the App Store, it'll be like, Wow, actually, this, this kind of makes some sense. We will tweak it here or there. And, like, I can see, I can see it happening.
So if you're listening to, you know, Dot Social and you don't know, you know, you're not in Europe. Like, how should people experience the AltStore? Where can they go?
Riley Testut:
That's a good question. So if you're not in the official regions that AltStores in, we do have the original version of AltStore, called AltStore classic, still available, and if you want to try it out, you can get a sense of alt storage. However, to install it, you need to install like a program on your computer, and then you need to use your computer to install AltStore onto your phone. And then you need to do that every seven days, so it's a lot, but if you wanted, like, just to see the concept of having a store on your phone, that is something that you can do, or, I would say, if that's probably a lot, you can just check out our Explore page, explore dot alt dot store, and then you can see all of the apps and app updates that are just in AltStore. And then you can get a sense of the content inside of that. So that's on the web. Just go there and you can see all the different apps that people are making. And you may not be able to download them readily, but you can at least see the ecosystem that's starting to form here, exactly. And it's cool, like, you can follow it from your mask on client of choice, or on Bluesky. We bridge the Bluesky too, which is so cool to me. Like, I'll just be on my timeline, and then I'll see, like, an app update come out from an app I care about. I'm like, oh, so I'll like it in Mastodon, in Ivory. And so, yeah, that's cool to see that.
Mike McCue:
I love that. And shout out to you guys for, like, donating additional capital to Mastodon to a new social you know, who makes the bridge that you know, other folks. I mean, I think it was so great that you did that. It's, it's, I think, demonstrates what I hope other app developers who are benefiting from the social web can do, share the wealth, share, share, you know, help support these. You know, because these are all indie developers too, you know, that are building these, these things. So I love that you guys led by example there.
Riley Testut:
Oh, yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. But yeah, that's what we're trying to do, just show that all this is possible. And, yeah, it's awesome.
Shane Gill:
Yeah, you know, we come from the very open source ecosystem, and we're aware that we're built on the backs of, like a lot of other developers who made lots of other code and spots, especially, you know, Delta being something that's a multi emulator that's working with lots of other emulators that are online. And it's that community that gets formed, and you're just realizing that you want to support the whole community, because everyone doing well and everyone sharing in the success means that, you know, we'll all keep moving forward.
Mike McCue:
You know, I just love that you guys have been doing this. You're pushing the world forward in a way that I think Steve Jobs would be proud of, honestly. And I think what you guys are doing to help indie developers, to help the social web, to help create, you know, new models for payment and and people being able to make a living building what they love that other people love. I mean, this is, this is what it's all about, and you're right at the heart of it. I'm so excited that we got a chance to talk today. And anything else you want, any other place you want to point folks to before we wrap,
Riley Testut:
if you're in the EU or Japan, you can just download AltStore from our website. AltStore.io and, yeah, try it out. Let us know what you think of it. It's it's really cool to hear from people who are like playing around with it, because people have a lot of cool ideas of what an app store should be, and that's kind of what we want to be focused on. It's just building up what people want in our product,
Shane Gill:
yeah, and otherwise, you know, you can always go find us on, you know, there's Reddits we have our our socials where we're just talking about news that's going on with us. So if you want to just kind of stay in tune with the latest, you know, we're going along with all the new laws and anything that gets passed and sort of promoting what we're doing there. So if you want to, just like, follow any of that. You know, that's where we're posting.
Mike McCue:
You guys are building the future, man, and it's very It's very cool to be collaborating with you guys as part of the ecosystem. And well done, man, well done. Thanks for Thanks for everything you're doing, and thanks for being on Dot Social.
Well, thanks so much for listening. You can learn more and connect with Riley and Shane at AltStore.io
Big thanks to our editors, Rosana Caban and Anh Le.
If you're interested in this podcast, you might want to check out surf.social/discover to explore 1000s of community feeds being built on the Open Social Web.
Until next time we'll see you in the fediverse.