As promised by the AppTapp team, the first developer beta of Installer 5 has been released. Billed as the Cydia alternative, Installer 5 is a fully featured package manager for jailbroken iOS devices running iOS 8 – iOS 11.

Unlike Cydia, Installer has been designed specifically for iOS. The team behind Installer says that it has been created to break the monopoly of Cydia, though they are offering it as an alternative package manager instead of completely replacing the former.

If your iOS device is jailbroken, you will be glad to know that you can use Installer and Cydia together as well without any issues. Both package managers would be able to see the packages installed by each other.

Apart from its open nature which allows users to add their own repositories, it also comes with a brand new design similar to that of the iOS App Store which is leaps and bounds better than that of Cydia. The package manager is also free of any ads for optimum user experience.

Even better, Installer 5 will only show the jailbreak packages that are compatible with the iOS version your device is running. Other notable features of Installer 5 includes the ability to search for packages from specific developers, rating packages, comment on them, adding source dependency, and a donate button for repositories. The Recent Packages list and the Featured page are used to highlight new and notable packages for jailbroken users. If you are a jailbreak tweak developer, you will find plenty of improvements in Installer over Cydia in every major aspect as well.

Interested in Installer 5 and cannot wait to use it? Well, here’s the bad news. Right now, you can use Installer 5 only if you were accepted as a beta tester. If you are, then you should receive a beta build of Installer 5 in a week. The first developer beta of the package manager was released to certain developers, with a bigger developer group getting access to it tomorrow.