Clearing up a grey area
Fancy playing some old-school Game Boy titles on your iPhone but not sure if downloading the games violates any regulations? Well, you’re in luck, as Apple has just clarified its rules on emulators, and the outcome might not be what you were expecting.
Over the weekend, a new Game Boy emulator named iGBA was uploaded to Apple’s App Store. However, it was swiftly taken down by Apple, with the company saying the app violated its App Review Guidelines, specifically those relating to spam and copyright.
That might have created the impression that Apple did not want Game Boy emulators appearing in its App Store, something that makes sense considering Nintendo’s strict policy against emulators. But it turns out Apple didn’t take down iGBA because it was breaching copyright rules by emulating Game Boy games – it did it because it flagrantly ripped off another app.
As it transpires, iGBA is a carbon copy of GBA4iOS, another Game Boy emulator designed for iOS, and Apple apparently told MacRumors that it removed the app for this reason.
