Alternative App Stores and Subscription Services Shake Up Mobile Market
The mobile app industry continues to boom with massive consumer spending, while new distribution methods like AltStore challenge traditional app marketplaces.
The mobile app industry remains a massive business, generating over $100 billion in consumer spending and reaching 194 billion downloads in 2018 alone. Users now spend 90% of their mobile time inside applications, surpassing the time they spend watching traditional television. As this market rapidly evolves, a major theme this week centers on alternatives to the standard app store model.
A new iOS marketplace called AltStore emerges as a significant challenge to Apple's official ecosystem by allowing users to install apps without a jailbreak. The store works by tricking the iPhone into thinking the user is a developer sideloading apps, using a desktop companion app to re-sign the software every seven days via iTunes WiFi syncing. AltStore currently hosts a Nintendo emulator and other games, though Apple is likely already preparing a strategy to shut the service down.
Meanwhile, both Apple and Google are ramping up their own subscription-based collections of premium apps and games to maximize user retention. However, Google faces ongoing challenges with app quality, as it recently mass-deleted 46 apps from major Chinese developer iHandy without providing a public explanation. In response to shifting industry needs, App Annie acquires new technology to help publishers better track their return on investment in this highly competitive landscape.