Apple App Store Update Says Emulation Is Coming Back. Kind Of. Well…Maybe.
from the big-if-true dept
For years and years, Apple has done its best to prevent emulators from appearing in its App Store. Given Apple’s walled-garden approach, not to mention console manufacturers never-ending hatred for emulators generally, it wasn’t a huge shock that Apple went this route. Even when the occasional workaround has been discovered to allow people to get emulators onto their iPhones, Apple has been consistent about shutting those down.
For years, emulation enthusiasts have complained about this practice. After all, emulators themselves are perfectly legitimate and there are a ton of valid reasons for using them. Sure, sometimes emulators are used to infringe copyright on games never purchased by those playing them, but that is a subset of the total use of an otherwise valid tool.
Well, Apple recently released an update on its platform informing developers of changes to App Store policies, and it includes an interesting change.
When Apple posted its latest update to the App Store’s app review and submission policies for developers, it included language that appears to explicitly allow a new kind of app for emulating retro console games.
Apple has long forbidden apps that run code from an external source, but today’s announced changes now allow “software that is not embedded in the binary” in certain cases, with “retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games” specifically listed as one of those cases.
Now, Apple has long forbidden apps that allow software to be run that is not included in the binary while claiming its doing so for security reasons. After all, if Apple can lock down what gets to an iPhone to specifically the code and software it can review before it goes into the App Store, it can prevent calls to software and code from outside the walled garden, which could contain non-reviewed malicious content. But that was never really the whole point. It was also about control and one of the aspects of that control has been to disallow emulators to call out to ROMs outside of the program itself. In other words, an emulator that pitched itself as legit on its own, but which also offered the ability to go out and get infringing ROMs, was disallowed.
This change opens the door, but nobody expects it to be open beyond the barest of slivers.
It’s not completely clear from Apple’s wording, but our interpretation of Apple’s new rules is that it’s likely only the last of those examples will be possible; companies that own the intellectual property could launch emulator apps for downloading ROMs of their (and only their) games. So, for example, Sega could offer a Sega app that would allow users to download an ever-expanding library of Sega games, either as part of a subscription, for free, or as in-app purchases. Sega has offered its retro games on the iPhone before in emulation but with a standalone app for each game.
“You are responsible for all such software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws,” Apple writes. And it specifically says “retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games” in the list of exceptions to the rules against “software that is not embedded inside the binary”—but it doesn’t list any other method for retro game console emulator apps.
If that’s how this shakes out, it all still kind of sucks. Again, there are plenty of uses for console emulators, even for major consoles like older Nintendo systems and the like. Some companies offer ROMs up without issue. There are a ton of home-brew games out there that would be legit to download. Some games come from companies that no longer exist and published games for which the rights to them are entirely in limbo. The emulator is just a tool, not something that infringes in and of itself.
So do I expect game emulation to come roaring back to the iPhone? Nah, not really. But the door is no longer fully shut to emulators, so perhaps there is hope.
Comments on “Apple App Store Update Says Emulation Is Coming Back. Kind Of. Well…Maybe.”
Abandon all hope, ye who enter the Apple ecosystem.
Re:
As much as I continue to be disappointed with Google, I’d rather not have my dick stuck in the vice of apples ecosystem.
You Forgot...
You forgot another reason Apple walls off access to the outside – money. They want to be able to control any activity that involves spending within the app so they can collect their two pounds of electronic flesh.
(When I bought a Peleton bike – okay, I need the exxercise – it did not supercede my membership on my iPad. For that, I had to cancel my membership – under my same Peleton login – on the app store. Peleton could not do it for me.)
Re:
Everyone needs exercise, no one needs a peleton.
Re:
What’s Peleton?
Re: Re:
An infringing version of Peloton, by the looks of things.
The bit about “owning the intellectual property on games/ROM” seems legit and allowing any source of ROM would be more a problem (from a legal PoV) for Apple than the user, even if for some abandonware or 40+ years old games, it may be a grey area.
But emulators, mostly for performance reasons, are virtual machine fed with bitcode that run natively, pretty much like web browser nowadays. And like web browser (except in EU where other web browsers could be installed now), a compiler (converting interpreted script to bitcode) is forbidden by Apple rules (since the beginning of the App Store in 2008, some companies like Adobe wanted to run app from Flash code but needed to compiled them before sending it to Apple, and it was only after Apple changes their rules to allow that).
The only solution is a sandbox executing the bitcode (exactly like web browsers for 10+ years), but Apple and security (despise what the marketing says) have always been two.
My take: “We, Apple, are thinking of it… [insert infinite spinning wheel]”
Someone creating a console emulator could easily offer simply the emulator with a statement in the blurb about it playing “software you own legitimate copies of.” The fact that many of the copies played will be far from legitimate due to the problems created by devs who want to force everybody onto the “next big thing” is not the problem of either Apple or emulator creators.
why use an app?
Not sure why you can’t code the emulator in WASM and run it in a full screen browser, pulling whatever you want from wherever you want.
Perhaps someone will illuminate me.
The fixation on apps seems annoying.