It’s been a historic week on iOS. At least at the European level, since it is the territory in which the first alternative store to the App Store has officially landed. We know that it will not be the last, but being the pioneer, it is the one who opens the way to good news, but also to disadvantages. Because yes, it works very well, but there are elements to take into account.
Most of these are not disadvantages unique to the AltStore, since They also point out other stores’ problems which will arrive in the weeks and months to come. However, there are also some issues regarding their payment and subscription methods.
A subscription that is difficult to manage
Until now, there was only one way to manage app subscriptions on iPhone, by having a dedicated section to collect them all. However, now subscriptions purchased in third-party stores come into play and since they do not use Apple’s native payment platform, they are not included in any section. SO, No more subscriptions organized in one place.
The AltStore requires an annual payment of 1.50 dollars plus tax (1.83 dollars in the case of USA) and, considering this price more or less justified, it is ultimately a recurring payment that must be paid every year. And this is managed from the AltStore site itself, but to make matters worse we find donations through Patreon for applications like ‘Clip’, there are no longer two, but three places to manage iPhone subscriptions.
At the moment this is not overly problematic, but looking to the future and with more subscriptions, It will be normal to forget and pay by mistake. It is not excluded that to avoid these confusions, some sort of section will be proposed in the future to group both payments through the App Store and in these stores. However, this is not something simple either, since Apple is not aware of these payments to third parties and it is therefore not easy to facilitate things.
Trusting our memory is not the most recommended option. For now, and as tedious as it may be, There is no other choice than to write it down manually so as not to forget it.. There it serves as a simple note or recurring reminder so that when the subscription payment is about to take place, we can cancel it if we wish.
Other applications will arrive, but for the moment there are only two
This is an issue specific to the European AltStore. This isn’t a figure of speech or a slight exaggeration, it’s that they literally have two apps: “Delta”, a retro Nintendo gaming console emulator, and “Clip” as a high-energy iPhone clipboard. And already.
These are the only two apps in the AltStore
Although ultimately the center of the controversy lies, once again, in the payments. AltStore costs an annual subscription and one of its two apps as well. In this case, via a Patreon donation, but with a cost after all. Here we emphasize once again that this is a lower price than the store itself, which is 1.83 dollars if you live in USA.
In any case, the formula of offering a paid store is already controversial regardless of the price. However, there are cases like Setapp (which will also come to iOS) which offers many free tools that are otherwise paid for. In the case of AltStore, well, just two and one demanding payment.
An annoying bug that makes uninstalling apps (almost) irreversible
It will be a matter of time they end up fixing it. I would dare say even hours, because that is a major and annoying mistake. However, at the time of publishing this post, it is still present. In essence, when you uninstall an app from iPhone, it cannot be downloaded again from the AltStore.
The app is uninstalled, but in AltStore only the open button appears and no matter how much you give it, the app doesn’t reinstall
Technically this should be the case, just like those in the App Store. The problem is that when we go to do it, instead of appearing the download button, what appears is the option to open the application. And it doesn’t matter if you click on this button, because the application will not open since it is not already installed and it will not open either.
This results in a continuous loop where it doesn’t matter whether you close the AltStore and reopen it. It is also not relevant to restart the iPhone. There only solution that exists at the moment also involves uninstalling the store itself and reinstalling it and this, as we will see below, is also problematic.
If you reinstall it, you won’t pay again, even though it looks like you will.
I first encountered this bug when reinstalling an app, so I decided to uninstall the AltStore in order to reinstall it and resolve the issue. However, When you go to download the AltStore from their website, you will be asked to pay again. In my case, I paid via Apple Pay and not with Stripe, which is the other payment option. He had no email or other means of identification.
We get to this point without indicating at any point that we will not be charged again.
But This is actually a false alarm.. After searching through many options to log in and already being resigned to having to pay again, I verified that after you confirm payment you really aren’t charged again. The entire payment interface with Apple Pay appears as the first time, it requires Face ID to confirm it and after that the store is downloaded, but without charging a single euro.
This is when we are identified using the Apple ID, but it’s not very intuitive giving the feeling that your payment will be doubled. This is something that is familiar to us in any case, given that it also happens with family purchases in the App Store. And this, unlike the previous one, does not seem to be corrected. Fortunately, that’s it, a false alarm.
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