Apple has removed iGBA, a Game Boy emulator app for the iPhone, after approving its release over the weekend. The app was among the first to take advantage of Apple’s recently relaxed rules on retro game emulators, a move the tech giant made after EU regulators forced Apple to open up to App Store rivals such as AltStore, which aims to offer game emulators and other Patreon-supported apps to iPhone users.
The iGBA that was first released on Sunday was an ad-supported copy of the GBA4iOS open source project that offered a Game Boy game emulator for iOS. The new app worked 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 the permission of GBA4iOS developer Riley Testut, who also developed the AltStore and Deltaa Nintendo emulator and popular successor to GBA4iOS.
Testut he said in a post on Threads on Sunday that he was angry with Apple for endorsing the iGBA while his own Delta app, currently on Apple’s TestFlight, was ready to go as of March 5. He also wasn’t thrilled to have his work cut out and monetization this way.
Posted by @rileytestut
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“I didn’t give anyone permission to do this, but now it’s at the top of the charts (despite being full of ads + tracking),” Testut told Threads. “I’ve been biting my tongue a lot this past month…but this is really letting me down. So glad App Review exists to protect consumers from scams and misrepresentations like this,” she added, sarcastically.
As some have noted, the knock-off version used the same code as GBA4iOS. But like others pointed out, GBA4iOS emulator was distributed under a License GNU GPL v2, which should have allowed different copies — except that Testut added a custom restriction to it that prohibited App Store distribution of any work containing the code. They argued that such a restriction was technically not allowed under the GPL v2.
However, Apple decided that the failed app should be removed for violating its App Store guidelines regarding spam and copyright (rules 4.3 and 5.2, respectively), effectively siding with Testut on the matter, despite the previous mistake her.
Posted by @kche1gamer
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Apple told TechCrunch that the app’s functionality was approved, but when the company learned that the app was copying another developer’s submission and passing it off as its own, it took action on its instructions.
The Cupertino-based tech giant has been pushing to make the App Store more open thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). After updating its App Store rules to comply with the new regulation, Apple had announced that it would also allow streaming game stores globally. However, additional support for retro game emulators was only added this month, with the caveat that games must use in-app purchases if they offer digital downloads. While this would potentially open up another revenue stream for Apple, the iGBA app was free and ad-supported, so its removal was no loss to Apple’s bottom line.
