Top all-time · #4142
Riley Testut
Personal blog · rileytestut.com/blogprogrammingbusiness
Riley Testut's personal blog at rileytestut.com covers programming and business. Since 2014, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 21 times, most often “AltStore”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-10-07, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Riley Testut's blog for the launch post and backstory of AltStore, an alternative iOS app store, and for the technical details of how it works. The comments cite it as the source.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Independent iOS developer, USC student, and Apple fan.
Most-linked posts?
- AltStore8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2019-09-25
- iOS AltStore PAL4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-04-25
- Thoughts on the App Store (2020)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-09-10
- Thoughts on the App Store, by the dev behind AltStore2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-16
What Hacker News says?
The first app store approved is Altstore PAL: https://rileytestut.com/blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore...
Comment linking /blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore-pal/
on “Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe”Submitted AltStore Pal as a story · 30 points
HN discussionFrom the author's blog post on how AltStore works [1]: > For this distribution method, AltStore requires your Apple ID and password to communicate on your behalf with Apple’s developer servers. This seems really sketchy, and I would not be surprised if Apple took steps to prevent this, and possibly even to disable Apple IDs associated with this activity. > The last major restriction is that an iOS device may only ev…
Comment linking /blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/
on “AltStore: Alternative iOS app store that doesn't require a jailbreak”Submitted AltStore as a story · 15 points
HN discussionFrom the author’s blog post, which goes into more technical details: “While there’s nothing I could do about this from the iOS device itself, as it turns out the same underlying iTunes (WiFi) sync infrastructure I’m using allows you to also install and remove provisioning profiles from devices (since Xcode also requires this ability to manage profiles for developers). Before installing an app, I remove all the exist…
Comment linking /blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/
on “AltStore: Alternative iOS app store that doesn't require a jailbreak”Submitted Thoughts on the App Store, by the dev behind AltStore as a story · 5 points
HN discussionFor people who wants to go directly without visiting the article... This is the AltStore's main link: https://altstore.io This is the author's launch blogpost: http://rileytestut.com/blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/ And this is the Github repo: https://github.com/rileytestut/AltStore
Comment linking /blog/2019/09/25/introducing-altstore/
on “AltStore: Alternative iOS app store that doesn't require a jailbreak”Submitted AltStore – Alternative Apple Store as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis blog post by the author provides the backstory: https://rileytestut.com/blog/2020/10/14/thoughts-on-app-stor...
Comment linking /blog/2020/10/14/thoughts-on-app-store/
on “Altstore: Home for apps that push the boundaries of iOS. No jailbreak required”Submitted Introducing AltStore as a story · 3 points
HN discussionYup. https://rileytestut.com/blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore...
Comment linking /blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore-pal/
on “Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us”Submitted Evolving AltStore PAL – alternative iOS app store connects with the Fediverse as a story · 2 points
HN discussionProbably not the first but ok. https://rileytestut.com/blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore...
Comment linking /blog/2024/04/17/introducing-altstore-pal/
on “First Alternative App Store for iOS”Submitted iOS AltStore PAL as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Game Boy Emulator GBA4iOS Is Dead as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted AltStore Pal: First Alternative iOS App Store for EU as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Thoughts on the App Store (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Thoughts on the App Store (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted An Alternative App Store for iOS as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted AltStore – An Alternative iOS AppStore, how to bypass Apples restrictions as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Delta Lite: NES Emulator for iPad Swift Playgrounds as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
