With Apple having recently updated their guidelines for the App Store, iOS users have been left to speculate on specific wording and whether retro emulators as we know them would truly have a place in the great walled garden. Today it seems our questions have been answered with the arrival of what appears to be the first traditional emulator on the App Store: iGBA. Having downloaded it myself I can confirm it is a functional GBA and GBC emulator, so what’s the catch?

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Well to be blunt, this really just looks like the classic iOS emulator GBA4iOS, with unavoidable advertisements thrown in for good measure. This comes from a developer with an extensive library of apps ranging from barcode scanners to money trackers, all oddly four years old. It comes across as a quick cash in while there are no other accessible alternatives and it isn’t something that should be supported, especially as more feature-rich and actively developed emulators like Ignited have been rejected as spam.

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If you are interested in emulation on iOS I’d encourage you to look into sideloading, with apps like AltStore making the process surprisingly painless nowadays, and allowing you to install up to two other apps alongside AltStore itself. This comes with a caveat that you need to check in with a PC every seven days to keep your apps playable, but it’s a price worth paying when you consider you’re getting ad-free emulation. And ad-free emulation that supports both DS and N64 games with no issues.

Emulation on iOS can actually be pretty great!​

iGBA could yet be a positive sign of things to come, with this potentially demystifying Apple’s latest guidelines. It’s a space worth watching for any iOS users out there, even if the first to make it through isn’t quite what we’d hope to have seen.

Update: Other Emulators on the App Store
Note that outside of iGBA, other "emulators" have been appearing on the App Store. The ones I'm aware of are "My Boy! - GBA Emulator", "John GBA", and "DraStic DS Emulator 3D", all by Anas Zakarneh. These each cost £6.99 and and are not emulators. Scrolling through their screenshots reveal that they are cheap games trying to cash in on the emulation hype before the real apps hit the scene. Be cautious, do research, and don't get caught out.

 

[K3Nv2]

Isn't Amazon trying to ditch using Android OS? People will surely want those sticks even more when they're discontinued.

Yeah but there are other drvices, Chromecast 4k and what not. Portability wise we got tons of cheap "e-waste" people always flail about then get excited over being able to play gba on a $800 Apple phone? I don't get it.

 

[Wolfy]

That's some scummy shit if they really did just reupload GBA4IOS for modern IOS. Not that I'm surprised from a "developer" that has a history of a multitude of apps spanning genres that all include ads.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Isn't Amazon trying to ditch using Android OS? People will surely want those sticks even more when they're discontinued.

the shield tv pro will welcome them with open arms

 

[torrent_get]

I would imagine Steve Jobs' reaction over this if he were still alive.

He was burning verbatims last century.

 

[SylverReZ]

@SylverReZ Just curious, do you have dyslexia? No offense intended, genuinely curious.

No, I don't.

 

[Sono]

Somehow Apple keeps approving scam apps (I can't verify if they are actual scams due to the apps being paid, but judging by the reviews and the app size (>100MB) they are) of popular emulator names, so everyone should watch out to not fall for these scams.
I will not link them because of this, but you can search on the App Store for popular emulators existing on Android, and you'll probably find these. Seems like they are all from the same developer account though.

I wish we could verify these somehow, so it could be put into the first post as a warning.

 

[Scarlet]

Somehow Apple keeps approving scam apps (I can't verify if they are actual scams due to the apps being paid, but judging by the reviews and the app size (>100MB) they are) of popular emulator names, so everyone should watch out to not fall for these scams.
I will not link them because of this, but you can search on the App Store for popular emulators existing on Android, and you'll probably find these. Seems like they are all from the same developer account though.

I wish we could verify these somehow, so it could be put into the first post as a warning.

No they are 100% scams if you mean the MyBoy and Drastic ones. Scroll through the screenshots, they show the actual game (outside of the first screenshot of MyBoy at least).

On a positive note, it seems like Ignited has had some feedback from humans and might only be a few steps away from the App Store, so that's good to hear.

 

[MasterJ360]

We all know this will get taken down at some point.

 

[Scarlet]

Somehow Apple keeps approving scam apps (I can't verify if they are actual scams due to the apps being paid, but judging by the reviews and the app size (>100MB) they are) of popular emulator names, so everyone should watch out to not fall for these scams.
I will not link them because of this, but you can search on the App Store for popular emulators existing on Android, and you'll probably find these. Seems like they are all from the same developer account though.

I wish we could verify these somehow, so it could be put into the first post as a warning.

Oh good shout about popping a warning on the main post by the way, I've stuck something at the bottom for a bit of visibility.

We all know this will get taken down at some point.

This one might do with it being a bit sketchy, but I do have hope that some legitimate ones will make it on in the near future. Watch this space I suppose.

 

[chrisrlink]

question is how do you load your legal backups on a non jailbroken phone?

 

[Scarlet]

question is how do you load your legal backups on a non jailbroken phone?

You can just download files using a browser in modern iOS and move them around using the Files app. It was something that came as a shock to me when I came back to iPhones a few years ago lol. I keep most of my common backups on OneDrive, so they're fairly easy to drop onto any of my phones or handhelds.

 

[chrisrlink]

i might need to switch more due to syncing with my mother's icloud i wish ipod touches were still a thing

 

[solitonmedic]

I need that Joycon controller badly.

 

[Scarlet]

I need that Joycon controller badly.

It's these if you are interested: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1389473787/

They're not the cheapest, but they're probably the most flexible controller you'll find online since you can just clamp them onto anything. I got them for the iPad Mini 6 in particular since the 3:2 screen is perfect for GBA when landscape and DS when vertical.

 

[solitonmedic]

It's these if you are interested: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1389473787/

They're not the cheapest, but they're probably the most flexible controller you'll find online since you can just clamp them onto anything. I got them for the iPad Mini 6 in particular since the 3:2 screen is perfect for GBA when landscape and DS when vertical.

Oh my gosh, thank you!
Instantly ordered one, I just hope it works for iPhone 15.

 

[urbanman2004]

Sounds like Apple might've made a good point a/b keeping up its "walled garden" to protect its loyal consumer base from the dangers of opening up its app store to rogue apps designed by boogie man devs who intend to dupe unsuspecting buyers and take advantage of their lack of knowledge of the current emu scene. In due time, I expect the game section of Apple's app store to be polluted/riddled/littered w/ junk/scam apps that lays claim to a graveyard of shovelware at the detriment of its naïve users similarly to outcome Nintendo's eShop...

 

[Scarlet]

Oh my gosh, thank you!
Instantly ordered one, I just hope it works for iPhone 15.

I've clipped them onto my iPhone 13 Mini and Pro Max, as well as my iPad Mini 6. The clamps work pretty well even with cases on if you're a little careful with the positioning (I imagine you can bend the plastic of the case if you're a bit too aggressive and your case has a lip like mine do). Outside of that I've had fun throwing them onto a small laptop I have, a 13 inch Windows tablet, and even a Switch for a laugh.

Joy Cons pair fine with iPhones since iOS 16 if memory serves, and you can even remap controls in the Settings app as long as you have both the left and right connected. You can also have it use different mappings on a per-game basis, but be aware not every game is supported. I'd say have a play around with Joy Cons as a whole while you wait for the grips to come. I'd also advise looking into the "Guided Access" accessibility setting for gaming. This allows you to disable things like the power button, volume buttons, and being able to accidentally swipe out of an app until you hit the power button three times. It can be really handy if you use the grips a bit too tightly against the volume buttons.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I have anyway! If you want a fun way to charge the Joy Cons you use with the iPhone, I've been having a great time with this lately too:

https://gbatemp.net/review/retroflag-fc-joy-con-charging-dock.2104/

 

[Scarlet]

Well that didn't take long, iGBA is no longer accessible on the App Store. No concrete word as to why it might be at the moment, but there is some speculation about GBA4iOS's developer (and by extension Delta's developer) having quite recently updated the license of GBA4iOS to say that written permission is required to use the code on anything submitted to the App Store. Not a licensing expert myself to know how enforceable such things are however.

 

[Josh4u]

Well, kudos to the people who downloaded it before it got taken down. I'm sure there'll be other emulators uploaded in the future.

 

[LightBeam]

its like a hundred dollars a year

Yeah fuck that

Post automatically merged: Apr 15, 2024

If you want to get around the 3 app limitation and 7 day limit you can buy a developer license for $100 per year than you can sideload as many apps as you want. I did that in the past.

To be fair I have tried Android devices several times and it has always been a painful experience.

Which ones tho ? Cuz that doesn't mean anything really, android phones can be absolutely different.
I still have my phone that costed me 200€ and it works fine to the point I wonder why one would pay so much for a phone if it's not for the screen/camera/processing power.

I just don't understand why there are people who would throw 1K€ into something they literally just use for whatsapp, instagram and snapchat