Apple removes Game Boy emulator from the App Store
Apple approved the inclusion of iGBA in the App Store earlier this month, but one of the first popular emulators has already been removed. Apple claims that iGBA appears to be an imitation, not of Nintendo, but of another emulator. Riley Testut, the developer behind the decade-old GBA4IOS Boy emulator, says his app was the one that iGBA cloned.
“Apparently, Apple approved an imitation of GBA4IOS, the predecessor of Delta that I made in high school, in the App Store,” Testut said on Saturday. “I didn’t give anyone permission to do this, yet it’s now at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads + tracking).”
Testut says he was “glad that App Review exists” for cases like this. MacRumors reports that iGBA violated Apple’s sections 4.3 and 5.2, which restrict apps that qualify as spam and intellectual property violations. It is unclear at this time if iGBA was actually removed for copying Testut. However, an open-source emulator Testut later released that the developer behind iGBA was responsible for the mess.
Gizmodo reached out to Apple and Testut for comments but did not receive an immediate response.
Apple began allowing retro game emulator apps on April 5 as part of an effort to comply with new anti-steering guidelines from the European Commission. Retro game emulators are now allowed worldwide, though not if they copy someone else’s emulator. iGBA quickly rose to the top of the game charts when many users played one of the first Apple-approved GameBoy emulators on the iPhone. Meanwhile, a Commodore 64 emulator appeared in the App Store around the same time as iGBA and is still available for download.
While some video game emulators have managed to enter the App Store over the years, this is the first time Apple has explicitly approved it. However, players may have to wait a little longer before they can play GameBoy on the iPhone.
