Apple pulls Game Boy emulator over App Store violations, but says game emulators are allowed

Apple has removed iGBA, a Game Boy emulator app for the iPhone, after approving its launch over the weekend. The app was among the first to take advantage of Apple’s newly relaxed rules around legacy game emulators, a move the tech giant made after EU regulators forced Apple to open up to App Store rivals, like AltStore, which aims to offer game emulators. And other Patreon apps. Supported apps for iPhone users.

Debuting on Sunday, iGBA is an ad-supported version of the open source GBA4iOS project that offers a Game Boy emulator for iOS. The new app works as described, allowing users to download both Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color ROMs from the web and then open them in the app to play.

However, the app was submitted to the App Store without permission from GBA4iOS developer Riley Testot, who also developed the app. Alternative store And Deltaa Nintendo emulator and popular successor to GBA4iOS.

Testout He said in a post on topics On Sunday, he said he was angry at Apple for approving iGBA while his own app Delta, currently on Apple’s TestFlight, has been ready to launch since March 5. He also wasn’t happy about stopping his business and monetizing it this way.

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“I didn’t give anyone permission to do this, and yet it’s now at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads and tracking),” Testot said on Threads. “I’ve bitten my tongue a lot in the last month… but this really frustrates me. “Very glad apps are being reviewed to protect consumers from scams and theft like this,” he added sarcastically.

As some have noticed, the replica used the same GBA4iOS code. But as Others pointed out, The GBA4iOS emulator is distributed within the GNU GPL v2 license, which should have allowed copying otherwise – except for the fact that Testut added a custom restriction to it prohibiting App Store distribution of any work containing the code. They argued that such a restriction is not technically permissible under GPL v2.

However, Apple decided that the copycat app should be removed for violating its App Store guidelines on spam and copyright (Rules 4.3 and 5.2, respectively), essentially siding with Testut on the matter, despite its previous error.

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Apple told TechCrunch that the functionality in the app was approved, but when the company learned that the app was copying what another developer had submitted and passing it off as its own, it took action according to its guidelines.

The Cupertino-based tech giant has been pushed to make the App Store more open thanks to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). After updating its App Store rules to comply with the new regulation, Apple announced that it will also allow streaming game stores globally. But additional support for older game emulators wasn’t added until this month, with the caveat that games must use in-app purchases if they offer downloads of digital items. Although this would open up another revenue stream for Apple, the iGBA app was free and ad-supported, so its removal was not a loss for Apple.