Apple’s App Store has been a walled garden for some time now. Restrictive policies have only changed recently, largely thanks to EU regulations. However, Taha has also been a bumpy process, met with a lot of resistance from Cupertino.
Thankfully, things seem to be improving, and Apple’s latest app review guidelines now offer a more relaxed attitude towards offering additional content from apps. Notably, this includes retro video game console emulators which, under the new rules, could allow users to download games, also commonly known as ROM files.
This could very well mark the return of emulators to the App Store, which have been mostly absent in recent history. The guidelines state that: “You are responsible for all software offered in your app, including ensuring that such software complies with these Guidelines and all applicable laws.” So everything must be legal and correct. This leads us to wonder about some older game titles classified as “abandonware” that often have confusing and uncertain legal ties potentially still attached.
While reading the new App Review Guidelines, we couldn’t help but notice that Apple lists “game emulators” alongside “mini apps, mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins” and states generally that: “ Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, particularly HTML5 mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plugins. That HTML5 bit worries us slightly, especially when combined with a additional guidance that states: “Your app may not extend or expose native platform APIs to software without prior permission from Apple.” This potentially means that “native” emulators that take advantage of things like hardware acceleration powered by Apple system are not allowed? If this were the case and only high-level emulation technologies could be used, we cannot realistically expect the most performance-demanding consoles to be emulated.
As with everything Apple, especially with regards to looser regulations and breaking down the “walled garden,” we fully expect that the outcome will be based on a precedent that Apple itself is sure to set. We’ll just have to see how things play out (pun intended).
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