Apple officially allows emulators on the iOS App Store

Over the past few months, new international laws and external pressure has forced Apple’s hand into relaxing many of its rules surrounding iOS and the Apple App Store. Between the addition of cloud streaming apps and the promised arrival of the Epic Games Store later this year, the iPhone creator has now started to allow game emulators to be added to the iOS App Store.

Making the announcement on its developer website, Apple officially unveiled its latest App Store policy changes, with section 4.7 stating: “Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins. Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games.”

As with all emulators, players will have to source their own game files – by ripping your legitimate copies of retro titles of course.

This change comes at an interesting inflection point for game emulation, with Nintendo recently suing Switch emulator ‘Yuzu’ to the tune of $2.4 million; scaring many others into hiding as a result.

With Apple now allowing emulators onto their App Store, hopefully it lends further credibility to the emulation industry.

KitGuru says: Are you excited for this change? What recent policy update are you most pleased to see? What does Apple need to change/improve next in this area? Let us know down below.

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