Apple updated its App Store rules Friday to allow emulators for retro console games globally with an option for downloading titles. However, the company
One has already been pulled, though seemingly for unrelated copyright issues?
That said, I’m surprised that things have gotten to this point, I suppose time will tell once the property holders get involved how committed Apple is to this whole change, there’s still a lot of room to interpret the clause about conforming to all laws for the content that is being run in the app.
Given that I didn’t think ANY emulators would make it into the Appstore, I’m going to retract my position. However, I think that we’re still in the “Fuck around” stage of things and there may yet be some “Find out” to come.
Yeah MacRumors reached out and apparently Apple clarified that it was pulled for the GBA4iOS copyright issue and not anything to do with ROMs.
Agreed, it’ll be a long journey. But this is a step in the right direction, and I’m sure it will be an ebb and flow rather than just a flood of existing iOS emulation projects coming to the App Store.
For example; we won’t see Delta because of Riley’s competing store, and we probably won’t see Provenance because of all of the JIT stuff they built that will have to be removed for an App Store approved build.
I will be pretty upset if they just end up reversing their position. Google Play has had tons of emulators for years with no issues, with the exception of yuzu which is hardly surprising considering that’s a current gen console. I think the pressure at this point is more imagined.
I think that’s fair, I basically agree with the first comment on that Ars article:
App Review guidelines are always so vague and open to interpretation. We need a brave developer to submit a retro console emulator that can load arbitrary files to App Review and see what happens.
Agree to disagree.
Two emulators have launched and they both can open arbitrary ROM files as expected.
One has already been pulled, though seemingly for unrelated copyright issues?
That said, I’m surprised that things have gotten to this point, I suppose time will tell once the property holders get involved how committed Apple is to this whole change, there’s still a lot of room to interpret the clause about conforming to all laws for the content that is being run in the app.
Given that I didn’t think ANY emulators would make it into the Appstore, I’m going to retract my position. However, I think that we’re still in the “Fuck around” stage of things and there may yet be some “Find out” to come.
Yeah MacRumors reached out and apparently Apple clarified that it was pulled for the GBA4iOS copyright issue and not anything to do with ROMs.
Agreed, it’ll be a long journey. But this is a step in the right direction, and I’m sure it will be an ebb and flow rather than just a flood of existing iOS emulation projects coming to the App Store.
For example; we won’t see Delta because of Riley’s competing store, and we probably won’t see Provenance because of all of the JIT stuff they built that will have to be removed for an App Store approved build.
I will be pretty upset if they just end up reversing their position. Google Play has had tons of emulators for years with no issues, with the exception of yuzu which is hardly surprising considering that’s a current gen console. I think the pressure at this point is more imagined.
Oh I guess I was wrong too. Delta is already launched on the App Store.
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/delta-game-emulator/id1048524688
Happened today, and for those with governments that actually regulate (the EU) his AltStore is also up.
I think that’s fair, I basically agree with the first comment on that Ars article: