AltStore is another iOS App Store with a built-in Nintendo emulator.

Riley Testut, developer of iOS apps that has been working for years on video game emulation on mobile, has just released a project likely to upset the iOS ecosystem. He calls it AltStore, and it's an alternative to the Apple App Store that distributes the Testut software says that "can push the boundaries of iOS." In particular, it supports Testut's Nintendo emulator, called Delta, which allows anyone with an iPhone or iPad to play. Super Mario and other classics. In addition, there is no need to jailbreak your iOS device. Everyone can download AltStore now.

Testut released AltStore earlier today in a preliminary form. The full application will be launched on Saturday, September 28th, with Testut's full Delta emulator among the applications available in the store. It is already available as an open source project on GitHub.

For now, a version of Delta, called Delta Lite, is available in the preview that supports NES games. Testut indicates that the full version will support the SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo 64 platforms, and more to come. And with WWDC's Sony DualShock 4 and Xbox One support announced earlier this summer, you can play these games with a standard game console controller or any MFi-compatible gamepad.

You may be wondering how exactly Testut is able to distribute not only its own emulator application, but also its own complete application store. According to Testut, this is a simple but resilient method, based on years of explosions and other tricks that the iOS developer and jailbreak communities have concocted to circumvent Apple's restrictions. Testut notably revealed one of these tips in 2014, when it was using the Apple Developer Enterprise program, designed to allow companies to distribute software internally to allow anyone to install their emulator Nintendo, GBA4iOS.

Apple has become more restrictive about the corporate program in recent years, especially after discovering that Facebook and Google were both misusing the program to distribute VPN applications to regular consumers, in violation of the rules of the Apple developer. The business program is also under full control of Apple, which means that the company can revoke access anytime, anytime. Testut says that he has a new method that can be a little harder to close.

This involves installing the AltServer companion application on your Mac or Windows PC, connecting your iOS device and manually installing the AltStore software on the phone or tablet. To do this, you must also enter your Apple ID with a password specific to the application, which can be generated online from the Apple ID Management Portal.

That said, once the software is installed on your phone, it is impossible to distinguish it from software that you developed yourself, compiled in Xcode and installed on your own device, explains Testut. AltStore also uses iTunes Wi-Fi sync to ensure weekly update of the app, so avoid being forcibly removed from your device after seven days, according to the mode. operating applications not installed through the App Store on iOS. (The beta software using TestFlight or the company program works differently.)

In this sense, it works much like the existing Cydia Impactor tool for installing iOS application files. Yet, instead of just letting you install random application files, it installs a full-featured application store that can distribute its own secondary software.

That's not to say that Apple can not stop it. Testut says he does not know it would be easy for Apple to do this without also removing the possibility for DIY developers, schools and other organizations that rely on this basic iOS infrastructure to create test applications and software for internal use.

"It would be interesting because everything I do, Apple does it alone," Tesut said. The edge project earlier this year while still in development. "A cumbersome approach is that they [Apple] the entire service, but it would affect everyone, including schools. No matter who simply uses his free Apple ID on the side. "

On top of that, Testut thinks that Apple could disable syncing via Wi-Fi, but that would simply mean plugging your phone once a week to continue using AltStore and the apps it distributes. "I do not know how fast they would react and what they would do, but even in the worst case, I think there is still some way to go for AltStore. As long as iTunes can sync applications, Alt Store can work, "he said.