For several weeks, globally, Apple has opened its App Store to users emulators. A developer, Mattia La Spina, took advantage of this opportunity and launched the application a few days ago – with some success. term, an emulator of Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. Yet, after many downloads, it was suddenly removed from the digital store. What happened?
Apple intervenes and removes a Game Boy Advance emulator from the App Store
In an email sent to the editorial staff of The Vergedeveloper Riley Testut said iGBA is an unauthorized clone of its open-source GBA4iOS emulator created for iPhone over ten years ago. Joe Rossignol of also investigated the matter MacRumorswho contacted Apple for more information on the matter.
The Cupertino company has confirmed that the removal of iGBA is due to the violation of the guidelines. Apple is referring to section 5.2 of the App Store rules:
Make sure your application only includes content that you create or have a license to use. Your app may be removed if you have used content without permission. As a result, this also means that another developer’s app could be removed if they exploited your work.
The Verge has contacted both Testut and La Spina for comment on what happened. The first took the opportunity to explain that he was a little saddened by Apple’s attitude, since it has been trying to launch its alternative marketplace for more than a month. La Spina, however, did not explicitly confirm that it had used Testut’s code, but, sorry for what happened, contacted him via email.
With iGBA gone, you can turn to Emu64 XL, a Commodore 64 emulator that “emulates graphics, sounds and peripherals to perfection” is that “it has a keyboard with the same layout as the original one“.
Cover image by MacRumors