AltServer 1.5 Release Candidate Now Available (Patreon)

Happy April everyone!

Yes, you read that subject correctly — the release candidate of AltServer 1.5 is FINALLY here! We know you've been waiting for this for a long time, and we appreciate your patience as we've worked hard to polish up all the bugs.

Thankfully the previous AltServer beta appears to be pretty stable, so this RC focuses on just a few last-minute fixes to make the AltServer 1.5 experience as smooth as possible. In particular, AltServer can now directly sideload .ipa's all the way back to iOS 9.3 📲 A main feature of AltServer 1.5 is the ability to directly sideload apps without AltStore, and for that we want to support as many devices as possible! Now, you can sideload apps onto iOS devices released all the way back in *checks notes* 2011...which we think is more than sufficient 😉

Since this is the release candidate, we plan to release this update to everyone in the next few weeks — assuming there are no major last minute bugs, of course. This is the biggest AltServer update ever, and we couldn't be more excited to finally share these great improvements with everyone. In fact, it's easy to forget all the changes included with this release since we've added so many — so for your reference here are the key highlights of AltServer 1.5:

📱 Use multiple iOS devices with the same Apple ID. Due to technical limitations, previous versions of AltServer were unable to install AltStore onto multiple devices with the same Apple ID. This has been understandably frustrating, which is why AltServer 1.5 now officially supports installing AltStore onto as many devices as you want, all with the same Apple ID 🎉 For iPad owners, this means you no longer have to choose between your iPhone or iPad to sideload apps onto — everything should just work as expected!

📲 Directly sideload apps (.ipa's) with AltServer,  bypassing AltStore. Sometimes, you just want to sideload an app and try it out with as little friction as possible. Now, you can completely sidestep AltStore and sideload apps directly with AltServer — all the way back to devices running iOS 9.3! Of course, this means you'll have to manually refresh your apps every 7 days to prevent them from expiring...but if you ever get tired of that, AltStore is just one install away 👍

⚡️ AltJIT Support. Some apps require just-in-time compilation (JIT) in order to run, but due to security reasons Apple prevents apps from using JIT by default. With AltServer 1.5, you can now manually enable JIT for any sideloaded app via the "Enable JIT" option in the AltServer menu. Once enabled, an app can use any JIT-related features until it is force-quit or purged from memory in the background.

👩‍💻 Prefers paid developer teams over free ones, if Apple ID is tied to multiple. While apps sideloaded with free Apple IDs expire after 7 days, apps sideloaded with Apple IDs linked to paid Apple Developer accounts expire after a full year. AltServer 1.5 will now prefer using paid developer teams over "free" developer teams — which means if you've been using AltStore with a paid Apple Developer account but your apps still expired after 7 days, this update is for you 🙌

📩 Separate Mail plug-in updates from AltServer updates. The Mail plug-in must be manually updated every time a new macOS version is released to explicitly list the macOS version as supported — or else the Mail app will refuse to launch the plug-in. Rather than having to issue entire AltServer updates whenever Apple updates macOS, AltServer 1.5 can now update just the Mail plug-in, making the whole process just a smidge less annoying for everyone.

✉️ No Mail Plug-in needed if SIP is disabled. The Mail plug-in allows AltServer to access information normally blocked by System Integrity Protection (SIP) that is needed to authenticate your Apple ID with Apple. This is much better than asking everyone to disable SIP, but if your Mac happened to have SIP already disabled...well, technically the plug-in isn't needed 🤷‍♂️. So for those of you living on the edge, AltServer 1.5 will now work without a Mail plug-in if you've also disabled SIP.

⚠️ To disable SIP:

1. Restart your Mac into Recovery mode by following these instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

2. Launch Terminal from the "Utilities" menu

3. Type the following command, then press ENTER to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP):

csrutil disable

4. Reboot into regular macOS, then open Terminal. Type the following command and press ENTER to disable AMFI:

sudo nvram boot-args="amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1"

5. Reboot once more, and AltServer should now be able to install and refresh apps without the Mail plug-in!

Once again, thank you all so much for your help testing AltServer 1.5. We plan to release it soon alongside AltStore 1.5, which combined with AltServer 1.5 will finally unlock AltJIT for everyone! After that, we plan to switch gears away from AltStore for a bit to focus on some highly-requested Delta features...iPad support anyone? 👀

- Riley