While AltStore works great for sideloading apps onto iPhones and iPads from Mac and Windows PCs with AltServer installed on them, Linux users find themselves with no official support, and many third-party forks exhibit Wi-Fi reliability issues. This is a major problem considering AltServer’s dependence on Wi-Fi.
Consequently, one developer by the name of leapbtw decided to make their own solution that would work better with the Raspberry Pi 4, and they’re calling it AltServer Pi.
In the /r/jailbreak release thread, leapbtw says that AltServer Pi lets end users refresh their sideloaded apps whenever their iPhone or iPad is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as their Raspberry Pi 4 with AltServer Pi installed on it.
While leapbtw intended to go a step further and use a VPN (virtual private network) to unlock app refresh capabilities even when away from the host Wi-Fi network, it never made it to fruition because they recently learned about SideStore, an untethered fork of AltStore that requires a computer only for the initial setup, and then never again after that.
While the concept of using a Raspberry Pi 4 as an AltServer device isn’t a new concept by any stretch, AltServer Pi is simply the latest and greatest, promising better Wi-Fi reliability.
It’s also worth noting that AltServer Pi can be adapted to run on other Linux devices with changes to the scripts, but it’s currently configured for the Raspberry Pi 4. That said, other Linux device users may still find use in this.
Despite the fact that SideStore is a fabulous alternative to both AltStore and AltStore Pi, leapbtw released their work to the general public because they spent a lot of time making it and thought someone out there may find it useful. Several comments in that /r/jailbreak post, in fact, indicate that an eager following exists.
If you’re interested in learning more about AltServer Pi, or potentially even trying it out for yourself, you can find instructions for setting it up on your Raspberry Pi 4 via the project’s GitHub page.
Do you intend to make use of AltServer Pi, or are you already using something else, such as SideStore or TrollStore? Let us know in the comments section down below.