https://altstore.io/ is an open app store available in Europe (for those who haven’t heard of it).
They announced at Fediforum that they’ve federated. Mike Mccue (Flipboard CEO) is on their board now, too.
They’re growing pretty fast. And I couldn’t help but think they might present an opportunity for indie music and audio, in terms of discovery.
Right now is a great time to get in their store. And I’m thinking it could be worthwhile to produce mobile apps for The Indie Beat that can be listed there. I mentioned The Indie Beat and our Bandwagon partnership to the Altstore founders during their Fediforum session, and they both lit up like Vegas. I think they’d be really excited and supportive to see a strong music presence. And we’d benefit in the form of new audiences from the exposure they’re getting right now.
What do you all think? Am I missing anything (something horrible I don’t know about?)?
Sounds very exciting! A mobile app would be super handy!
It’s been on my phone-tinkering list a while, was looking at sidestore.io too which looks a little easier … do all these “sideloading” things use the same stores?
IIUC, Altstore’s thing is that you don’t have to get a mobile developer account any more in order to use it. It seems like that’s still something one has to do with sidestore (from a very quick look at the docs).
It’s funny to me that “sideloading” is the pitch. Is that a common term these days? I suppose with early adopters it is, anyway. But my marketing brain doesn’t like that as the pitch
In any case, I was thinking it could be exciting if Mirlo, Faircamp, Bandwagon, etc. also made apps (pda’s) available on Altstore. The music fedi could kinda make a grand entrance, a bit of a splash that garnered some attention for everyone.
Our app’s currently written in React Native, which means that technically someone could convert it to be an Android app, but the volunteer who’s been working on this has an iPhone so has understandably been focused on getting it working on there. Someone’s expressed interest in converting it to Android, but that might be a ways off.
For what it’s worth, we’ve put a lot of attention on mobile interface stuff, so that Mirlo is pretty usable on mobile without an app store.
In terms of listing on Altstore, I was thinking it was more about increasing discoverability for everyone than anything else. Right now there’s an early adopter buzz around it, and I thought current users would be excited to see music apps, which would in turn create exposure to new listeners for our artists.
Plus, they’re open source and all about freedom to put what you want on your phone, etc. (And they’re federating.) They seem like natural allies and potentially a good project to support.
“- You must be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program as an organization based in the EU (or be the parent of a subsidiary legal entity listed in App Store Connect that is based in the EU);”
I spoke with Riley from Altstore today, and he promises that we don’t need a Euro-based legal entity. The Altstore, itself, covers that base, essentially. None of the apps listed in Altstore have to be from European entities. YAY!
Now, we do need to be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program. That costs a pretty penny. I’d be willing to go in together with anyone who isn’t already enrolled and share the cost. We can upload multiple apps under one account. (Though maybe some folks would prefer not to do that, which I fully understand.)
The other cool news from Riley is that they’re doing a big Fediverse launch in January. They’re putting a bunch of resources behind promoting all the Fediverse apps that are and will be on Altstore. So in terms of discover (which is my jam heh), it will be good stuff.
Our apps can be just a mobile browser opening to our web entity. Though Riley does recommend that we think about things like caching for the offline experience, particularly. Offline experience is the big thing with mobile (as someone who hasn’t developed for mobile in quite a while, I’m glad he reminded me).
